'MMEAMS ENGLISHi 
CLASSIC SERIES 



WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES 



P R 1 

oi06 



SELECTIONS 

AoM 

NEWMAN 



NEW YORK. 

MAyNARI>,MERRILL,&CO. 




Class TTls-iaib-- 

Book L_,]VV2 

GopglitN" 



COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




CARDINAL NEWMAN 



MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES. —SPECIAL NUMBER 



SELECTIONS 



FROM THE PROSE WRITINGS 



OP 



JOHN HENEY CAEDINAL NEWMAN 



FOE THE USE OF SCHOOLS 




NEW YORK 
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

J^W 18 »907 

If] Ceoyrl^ht Entry 
imss ^ XXc, No. 

] /Cc/s^/ 

^^ ^ COPY B. 



.M3 



Copyright, 1906, 

BY 

MAYNAED, MEERILL, & CO. 






CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 5 

Character Sketches : 

Saul 13 

Early Years of David 28 

Basil and Gregory 45 

Augustine and the Vandals 56 

Clirysostom 84 

The Turk: 

The Tartar and the Turk Ill 

The Turk and the Saracen 122 

The Past and Present of the Ottomans . . .143 

Universities : 

What is a University ? 155 

University Life : Athens 163 

Supply and Demand : The Schoolmen . . . 180 
The Strength and Weakness of Universities : Abe- 
lard 186 



Miscellaneous : 

Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics 
The Infinitude of the Divine Attributes 
Christ upon the Waters 
The Second Spring .... 

St. Paul's Characteristic Gift 

Notes ........ 



200 

218 
222 
229 
251 



INTRODUCTION 

It has come to be universally admitted that Cardinal 
Newman fulfills his own definition of a great author : 
" One whose aim is to give forth what he has within him ; 
and from his very earnestness it happens that whatever 
be the splendor of his diction, or the harmony of his 
periods, he has with him the charm of an incommuni- 
cable simplicity. 

"Whatever be his subject, high or low, he treats it 
suitably and for its own sake. . . . He "writes pas- 
sionately because he feels keenly ; forcibly, because he 
conceives vividly ; he sees too clearly to be vague ; he 
is too serious to be otiose ; he can analyze his subject, 
and therefore he is rich; he embraces it as a whole 
and in its parts, and therefore he is consistent; he has 
a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous. 

'' When his imagination wells up, it overflows in orna- 
ment ; when his heart is touched, it thrills along his 
verse. He always has the right word for the right idea, 
and never a word too much. . , . 

"He expresses what all feel but cannot say; and his 
sayings pass into proverbs among his people, and his 
phrases become household words, idioms of their daily 
speech, which is tessellated with the rich fragments of 
his language, as we see in foreign lands the marbles 
of Roman grandeur worked into the walls and pave- 
ments of modern palaces." 

Newman may be said to have handled England's 



6 INTRODUCTION 

prose as Shakespeare handled her verse. His language 
was wrought up little by little to a finish and refine- 
ment, a strength and a subtlety, thrown into the form 
of eloquence, beyond which no English writer of prose 
has gone. Nor is his excellence that of mere art in 
form; he possesses not only skill, which he calls an 
exercise of talent, but power — a second name for 
genius — which itself implies personality and points 
to inspiration. 

His mind was large, logical, profoundly thoughtful, 
imaginative, intense, sincere, and above all, spiritual; 
his soul was keen, delicate, sympathetic, heroic; and 
his life, at once severe and tender, passionate and self- 
controlled, alone and unlonely, stands out in its lofti- 
ness and saintliness, a strange, majestic contrast to the 
agitation and turmoil of "confused passions, hesitating 
ideals, tentative virtues, and groping philanthropies" 
amidst which it was lived. 

Both by word and work did Newman lead forth his 
generation on the long pilgrimage to the shrine of 
Truth, and England of the nineteenth century has no 
surer claim to holiness and genius for her great sons 
than that set upon John Henry Newman. 

He was born in London, 1801 ; studied, taught, and 
preached at Oxford; became the chief promoter of 
the Tractarian Movement of 1833 ; entered the Catho- 
lic Church in 1845; founded the Oratory at Birming- 
ham, 1848; was created Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII, 
1879; died at Edgbaston, 1890. 

Any attempt to choose from the writings of Newman 
what seems most desirable for brief class studies is 
certain to be woefully embarrassed by the very wealth 
of matter ; and apology for risking the choice would 
be due, were it not lost sight of in the desire to see a 



INTRODUCTION 7 

literary model so pure, varied, animated, forceful, 
luminous — '*a thing of light and beauty '^ — given to 
our students. 

What is more significant of the Life Book of the 
saintly Oxford Scholar than his self- written epitaph: 
"Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem^'? 



APPRECIATIONS 

Newman s best essays display a delicate and flex- 
ible treatment of language, without emphasis, without 
oddity, which hardly arrests the attention at first, — 
the reader being absorbed in the argument or state- 
ment, — but which, in course of time, fascinates, as 
a thing miraculous in its limpid grace and suavity. — 
Edmund Gosse's History of Modern English Literature. 

The work of Newman reveals him as one of the 
great masters of graceful, scholarly, finished prose. It 
is individual, it has charm, and this is the secret of its 
power to interest. No writer of our time has reflected 
his mind and heart in his pages as has Newman. He 
has light for the intellect and warmth for the heart. 
— A. J. George's Types of Literary Art. 

Newman towers, with only three or four compeers, 
above his generation; and now that the benignity of 
his great nature has passed from our sight, its majesty 
is more evident year by year. 

— Scudder's Modern English Poets. 

The finish and urbanity of Newman's prose have 
been universally commended even by those who are 
most strenuously opposed to his opinions. 

— H. J. Nicoll. 

All the resources of a master of English style are at 
Newman's command : pure diction, clear arrangement, 
delicate irony, gracious dignity, a copious command of 
8 



INTRODUCTION 9 

words combined with a chaste reserve in using them. 
All these qualities go to make up the charm of Newman's 
style — the finest flower that the earliest system of a 
purely classical education has produced. 

— J. Jacobs's Literary Studies. 

Newman combines a thoroughly classical training, 
a scholarly form, with the incommunicable and almost 
inexplicable power to move audiences and readers. 

— George Saintsbury. 

The pure style of Newman may be compared in its 
distinguishing quality to the atmosphere. It is at 
once simple and subtle, vigorous and elastic ; it pene- 
trates into every recess of its subject ; it is transparent, 
allowing each object it touches to display its own 
proper color. — H. E. Beeching's English Prose. 

There are touching passages characteristic of New- 
man's writings which give them a peculiar charm. 
They are those which yield momentary glimpses of a 
very tender heart that has a burden of its own, unre- 
vealed to man. ... It is, as I have heard it described, 
as though he suddenly opened a book and gave you a 
glimpse for a moment of wonderful secrets, and then 
as quickly closed it. . . . In Newman's Sermons, 
how the old truth became new ; how it came home, as 
he spoke, with a meaning never felt before ! He laid 
his finger how gently, yet how powerfully, on some in- 
ner place in the hearer's heart, and told him things 
about himself he had never known till then. Subtlest 
truths, which it would have taken philosophers pages of 
circumJocution and big words to state, were dropped out 
by the way in a sentence or two of the most transpar- 
ent Saxon. What delicacy of style, yet what strength ! 
how simple, yet how suggestive ! how penetrating, yet 
how refined! how homely, yet how tender-hearted! 



10 INTRODUCTION 

You might come away still not believing the tenets 
peculiar to the High Church System, but you would be 
harder than most men if you did not feel more than 
ever ashamed of coarseness, selfishness, worldliness, if 
you did not feel the things of faith brought closer to the 
soul. . . . Newman's innate and intense idealism is, 
perhaps, his most striking characteristic. ... It is a 
thought of his, always deeply felt and many times re- 
peated, that this visible world is but the outward shell 
of an invisible kingdom, a screen which hides from our 
view things far greater and more wonderful than any 
which we see, and that the unseen world is close to 
us and ever ready to break through the shell and 
manifest itself. — Shairp. 

Newman's great reputation for prose and the 
supreme interest attaching to his life seem to have 
obscured the fame he might have won as a poet. He 
was in poetry, as in theology, a more masculine Keble, 
but with all the real purity of Keble, with also the in- 
dispensable flavor of earth. — H. Walker. 

The Dream of Gerontius resembles Dante more than 
any other poetry written since the great Tuscan's time. 

— Sir Henry Taylor. 

The Dream is a rare poetic rendering into English 
verse of that high ritual which from the deathbed to the 
Mass of Supplication encompasses the faithful soul. . . . 
Newman has no marked affinities with English writers 
of his day. He is strikingly different from Macaulay, 
whose eloquence betrays the fury, as it is annealed in the 
fire, of the Western Celt. To Ruskin, who deliberately 
built up a monument, stately as the palace of Kubla 
Khan, he is a contrast, for the very reason that he 
does not handle words as if they were settings in archi- 
tecture or colors in a palette ; rather, he would look upon 



INTRODUCTION 11 

them as transparencies which let his meaning through. 
He is more hke De Quincey, but again no player upon 
the organ for the sake of its music ; and that which is 
common to both is the literary tradition of the eight- 
eenth century enhanced by a power to which abstract 
and concrete yielded in almost equal degree. . . . 
With so prompt and intense an intellect at his call, 
there was no subject, outside purely technical criti- 
cism, which Newman could not have mastered. 

— Barry's Literary Lives. 

It is when Newman exerts his flexible and vivid 
imagination in depicting the deepest religious passion 
that we are most carried away by him and feel his 
great genius most truly. . . . Whether tried by the 
test of nobility, intensity, and steadfastness of his 
work, or by the test of the greatness of the powers 
which have been consecrated to that work, Cardinal 
Newman has been one of the greatest of our modern 
great men. — R. H. Mutton's Life of Newman. 

Newman's mind was world-wide. He was interested 
in everything that was going on in science, in the 
highest form of politics, in literature. . . . Nothing 
was too large for him, nothing too trivial, if it threw 
light upon the central question, — what man really is 
and what is his destiny. — J. A. Froude. 

In Newman's sketch of the influence of Abelard on 
his disciples is seen his belief in the immense power for 
good or ill of a dominating personality. And he him- 
self supplied an object-lesson in his theory. Shairp, 
Froude, Church, Wilberforce, Gladstone, are only a 
few of those who have borne testimony to the personal 
magnetism which left its mark on the whole of think- 
ing Oxford. "Cor ad cor loquitur," the motto chosen by 
Newman on his receiving the Cardinal's hat, expressed 



12 INTRODUCTION 

to him the whole reaUty of intercourse between man 
and man, and man and God. 

— Wilfrid Ward's Prohleyns and Persons. 
Newman's mind swung through a wide arc, and 
thoughts apparently antagonistic often were to him 
supplemental each to each. ... A man of dauntless 
courage and profound thoughtfulness, while his in- 
tellect was preeminently a logical one, both the heart 
and the moral sense possessed with him their sacred 
tribunals in matters of reasoning as well as of senti- 
ment. . . . The extreme subtlety of his intelligence 
opposed no hindrance to his power of exciting vehe- 
ment emotion. — A. De Vere's Literary Reininiscences. 



I. CHAKACTER SKETCHES 



SAUL 

" I gave them a king in mine anger, and took him away in 
my wrath." — Rosea xiii. 11. 

The Israelites seem to have asked for a king 
from an unthankful caprice and waywardness. 
The ill conduct, indeed, of Samuel's sons was the 
occasion of the sin, but "an evil heart of unbe- 
lief," to use Scripture language, was the real cause 5 
of it. They had ever been restless and dissatis- 
fied, asking for flesh when they had manna, fret- 
ful for water, impatient of the wilderness, bent 
on returning to Egypt, fearing their enemies, 
murmuring against Moses. They had miracles 10 
even to satiety; and then, for a change, they 
wished a king like the nations. This was the 
chief reason of their sinful demand. And further, 
they were dazzled with the pomp and splendor 
of the heathen monarchs around them, and they 15 
desired some one to fight their battles, some 
visible succor to depend on, instead of having 
to wait for an invisible Providence, which came in 
its own way and time, by little and little, being 
dispensed silently, or tardily, or (as they might 20 
13 



14 CHABACTER SKETCHES 

consider) unsuitably. Their carnal hearts did 
not love the neighborhood of heaven; and; like 
the inhabitants of Gadara afterwards, they prayed 
that Almighty God would depart from their 

5 coasts. 

Such were some of the feelings under which they 
desired a king like the nations ; and God at length 
granted their request. To punish them, He gave 
them a king after their own heart, Saul, the son of 

loKish, a Benjamite; of whom the text speaks in 
these terms, " I gave them a king in Mine anger, 
and took him away in My wrath." 

There is, in true religion, a sameness, an absence 
of hue and brilliancy, in the eyes of the natural 

15 man ; a plainness, austereness, and (what he con- 
siders) sadness. It is like the heavenly manna of 
which the Israelites complained, insipid, and at 
length wearisome, " like wafers made with honey." 
They complained that " their soul was dried 

20 away." "There is nothing at all," they said, 
"beside this manna, before our eyes. . . . We 
remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt 
freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the 
leeks, and the onions, and the garlick." ^ Such 

25 were the dainty meats in which their soul de- 
lighted; and for the same reason they desired a 
king. Samuel had too much of primitive sim- 
plicity about him to please them, they felt they 
were behind the world, and clamored to be put 

soon a level with the heathen. 

* Exod. xvi. ; Numb. xi. 5. 



SAUL 15 

Saul, the king whom God gave them, had much 
to recommend him to minds thus greedy of the 
dust of the earth. He was brave, daring, reso- 
lute; gifted, too, with strength of body as well 
as of mind — a circumstance which seems to 5 
have attracted their admiration. He is described 
in person as if one of those sons of Anak, before 
whose giant-forms the spies of the Israelites in the 
wilderness were as grasshoppers — "a choice 
young man, and a goodly; there was not among lo 
the children of Israel a goodlier person than he : 
from his shoulders and upward he w^as higher 
than any of the people." ^ Both his virtues and 
his faults were such as became an eastern mon- 
arch, and were adapted to secure the fear and 15 
submission of his subjects. Pride, haughtiness, 
obstinacy, reserve, jealousy, caprice — these, in 
their way, were not unbecoming qualities in the 
king after whom their imaginations roved. On 
the other hand, the better parts of his character 20 
were of an excellence sufficient to engage the 
affection of Samuel himself. 

As to Samuel, his conduct is far above human 
praise. Though injuriously treated by his coun- 
trymen, who cast him off after he had served them 25 
faithfully till he was " old and gray-headed," ^ and 
who resolved on setting over themselves a king 
against his earnest entreaties, still we find no trace 
of coldness or jealousy in his behavior towards 
Saul. On his first meeting with him, he ad- so 

^ 1 Sam. ix. 2 — vide ibid. x. 23. ^ /jjc?, xii. 2. 



16 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

dressed him in the words of loyalty — " On whom 
is all the desire of Israel? is it not on thee, and 
on all thy father's house ?" Afterwards, when he 
anointed him king, he " kissed him, and said. Is it 

5 not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be 
captain over His inheritance?" When he an- 
nounced him to the people as their king, he said, 
"See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that 
there is none like him among all the people?" 

10 And, some time after, when Saul had irrecoverably 
lost God's favor, we are told, " Samuel came no 
more to see Saul until the day of his death: 
nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul.'^ In the 
next chapter he is even rebuked for immoderate 

15 grief — "How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, 
seeing I have rejected him from reigning over 
Israel?"^ Such sorrow speaks favorably for 
Saul as well as for Samuel; it is not only the grief 
of a loyal subject and a zealous prophet, but, 

20 moreover, of an attached friend; and, indeed, 
instances are recorded, in the first years of his 
reign, of forbearance, generosity, and neglect of 
self, which sufficiently account for the feelings 
with which Samuel regarded him, David, under 

25 very different circumstances, seems to have felt 
for him a similar affection. 

The higher points of his character are brought 
out in instances such as the following: The 
first announcement of his elevation came upon 

30 him suddenly, but apparently without unsettling 

1 1 Sam. ix. 20; x. 1, 24; xv. 35; xvi. 1. 



SAUL 17 

him. He kept it secret, leaving it to Samuel, who 
had made it to him, to publish it. "Saul said 
unto his uncle, He" (that is, Samuel) "told us 
plainly that the asses were found. But of the 
matter of the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake, 5 
he told him not." Nay, it would even seem he 
was averse to the dignity intended for him; for 
when the Divine lot fell upon him, he hid himself, 
and was not discovered by the people, without 
recourse to Divine assistance. The appointment lo 
was at first unpopular. "The children of Belial 
said, How shall this man save us ? They despised 
him, and brought him no presents, hut he held his 
peace." Soon the Ammonites invaded the coun- 
try beyond Jordan, with the avowed intention of 15 
subjugating it. The people sent to Saul for relief 
almost in despair; and the panic spread in the 
interior as well as among those whose country 
was immediately threatened. The history pro- 
ceeds : " Behold, Saul came after the herd out of 20 
the field; and Saul said. What aileth the people 
that they weep? and they told him the tidings 
of the men of Jabesh. And the Spirit of God 
came upon Saul, and his anger was kindled 
greatly." His order for an immediate gathering 25 
throughout Israel was obeyed with the alacrity 
with which the multitude serve the strong-minded 
in times of danger. A decisive victory over the 
enemy followed; then the popular cry became, 
" Who is he that said. Shall Saul reign over us ? 30 
bring the men, that we may put them to death. 



18 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

And Saul said, There shall not a man he put to 
death this day, for to-day the Lord hath wrought 
salvation in Israel." ^ 

Thus personally qualified, Saul was, moreover, 

5 a prosperous king. He had been appointed to 
subdue the enemies of Israel, and success attended 
his arms. At the end of the fourteenth chapter, 
we read : " So Saul took the kingdom over Israel 
and fought against all his enemies on every side, 

10 against Moab, and against the children of Am- 
mon, and against Edom, and against the kings of 
Zobah, and against the Philistines; and whither- 
soever he turned himself, he vexed them. And 
he gathered an host, and smote the Amalekites, 

15 and delivered Israel out of the hands of them that 
spoiled them." 

Such was Saul's character and success ; his 
character faulty, yet not without promise ; his 
success in arms as great as his carnal subjects 

20 could have desired. Yet, in spite of Samuel's 
private liking for him, and in spite of the good 
fortune which actually attended him, we find that 
from the beginning the prophet's voice is raised 
both against people and king in warnings and 

25 rebukes, which are omens of his destined destruc- 
tion, according to the text, " I gave them a king in 
Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath." 
At the very time that Saul is publicly received as 
king, Samuel protests, " Ye have this day rejected 

30 your God, who Himself saved you out of all your 

1 1 Sam. xi. 12, 13. 



SAUL 19 

adversities and your tribulations." ^ In a sub- 
sequent assembly of the people, in which he testi- 
fied his uprightness, he says, " Is it not wheat 
harvest to-day? I will call unto the Lord, and 
He shall send thunder and rain ; that ye may per- 5 
ceive and see that your wickedness is great, in asking 
you a king." Again, " If ye shall still do wickedly, 
ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king." ^ 
And after this, on the first instance of disobedience 
and at first sight no very heinous sin, the sentence lO 
of rejection is passed upon him: "Thy kingdom 
shall not continue; the Lord hath sought Him a 
man after His own heart." ^ 

Here, then, a question may be raised — Why 
was Saul thus marked for vengeance from the 15 
beginning? Why these presages of misfortune, 
which from the first hung over him, gathered, fell 
in storm and tempest, and at length overwhelmed 
him? Is his character so essentially faulty that 
it must be thus distinguished for reprobation 20 
above all the anointed kings after him? Why, 
while David is called a man after God's own heart, 
should Saul be put aside as worthless? 

This question leads us to a deeper inspection of 
his character. Now, we know, the first duty of 25 
every man is the fear of God — a reverence for His 
word, a love of Him, and a desire to obey Him ; and, 
besides, it was peculiarly incumbent on the king of 
Israel, as God's vicegerent, by virtue of his office, to 
promote His glory whom his subjects had rejected. 30 

1 1 Sam. X. 19. 2 ji^^^ ^^ u^ 25. ^ jj^^^^ xiii. 14. 



20 CTIARACTER SKETCHES 

Now Saul "lacked this one thing." His char- 
acter, indeed, is obscure, and we must be cautious 
while considering it; still, as Scripture is given us 
for our instruction, it is surely right to make the 
5 most of what we find there, and to form our judg- 
ment by such lights as we possess. It would 
appear, then, that Saul was never under the abid- 
ing influence of religion, or, in Scripture language, 
" the fear of God," however he might be at times 

10 moved and softened. Some men are inconsistent 
in their conduct, as Samson; or as Eli, in a dif- 
ferent way; and yet may have lived by faith, 
though a weak faith. Others have sudden falls, 
as David had. Others are corrupted by pros- 

I5perity, as Solomon. But as to Saul, there is no 
proof that he had any deep-seated religious prin- 
ciple at all ; rather, it is to be feared, that his his- 
tory is a lesson to us, that the " heart of unbelief" 
may exist in the very sight of God, may rule a man 

20 in spite of many natural advantages of character, 
in the midst of much that is virtuous, amiable, 
and commendable. 

Saul, it would seem, was naturally brave, ac- 
tive, generous, and patient; and what nature 

25 made him, such he remained, that is, without im- 
provement ; with virtues which had no value, 
because they required no effort, and implied the 
influence of no principle. On the other hand, 
when we look for evidence of his faith, that is, his 

30 practical sense of things unseen, we discover in- 
stead a deadness to all considerations not con- 



SAUL 21 

nected with the present world. It is his habit to 
treat prophet and priest with a coldness, to say 
the least, which seems to argue some great internal 
defect. It would not be inconsistent with the 
Scripture account of him, even should the real 5 
fact be, that (with some general notions concern- 
ing the being and providence of God) he doubted 
of the divinity of the Dispensation of which he was 
an instrument. The circumstance which first in- 
troduces him to the inspired history is not in hisio 
favor. While in search of his father's asses, 
which were lost, he came to the city where Sam- 
uel was ; and though Samuel was now an old 
man, and from childhood known as the especial 
minister and prophet of the God of Israel, Saul 15 
seems to have considered him as a mere diviner, 
such as might be found among the heathen, who, 
for "the fourth part of a shekel of silver," would 
tell him his way. 

The narrative goes on to mention, that after his 20 
leaving Samuel "God gave him another heart," 
and on meeting a company of prophets, "the 
Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied 
among them." Upon this, "all that knew him 
beforetime" said, " What it this that is come unto 25 
the son of Kish : is Saul also among the prophets ? 
. . . therefore it became a proverb." From this 
narrative we gather, that his carelessness and 
coldness in religious matters were so notorious, 
that, in the eyes of his acquaintance, there was 30 
a certain strangeness and incongruity, which at 



22 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

once struck the mind; in his being associated with 
a school of the prophets. 

Nor have we any reason to believe, from the 
after history, that the Divine gift, then first im- 
5 parted, left any religious effect upon his mind. 
At a later period of his life we find him suddenly 
brought under the same sacred influence on his 
entering the school where Samuel taught; but, 
instead of softening him, its effect upon his out- 

10 ward conduct did but testify the fruitlessness of 
Divine grace when acting upon a will obstinately 
set upon evil. 

The immediate occasion of his rejection was his 
failing under a specific trial of his obedience, as 

15 set before him at the very time he was anointed. 
He had collected with difficulty an army against 
the Philistines ; while waiting for Samuel to offer 
the sacrifice, his people became dispirited, and 
began to fall off and return home. Here he was 

20 doubtless exposed to the temptation of taking 
unlawful measures to put a stop to their defection. 
But when we consider that the act to which he was 
persuaded was no less than that of his offering 
sacrifice — he being neither priest nor prophet, 

25 nor having any commission thus to interfere 
with the Mosaic ritual — it is plain " his forcing 
himself '' to do so (as he tenderly described his 
sin) was a direct profaneness — a profaneness 
which implied that he was careless about forms, 

30 which in this world will ever be essential to 
things supernatural; and thought it mattered 



SAUL 23 

little whether he acted in God's way or in his 
own. 

After this, he seems to have separated himself 
from Samuel, whom he found unwilling to become 
his instrument, and to have had recourse to the 5 
priesthood instead. Ahijah or Ahimelech (as he 
is afterwards called), the high priest, followed his 
camp; and the ark, too, in spite of the warning 
conveyed by the disasters which attended the 
presumptuous use of it in the time of Eli. " And lo 
Saul said unto Ahijah, Bring hither the ark of 
God;" while it was brought, a tumult which was 
heard in the camp of the Philistines increased. 
On this interruption Saul irreverently put the ark 
aside, and went out to the battle. 15 

It will be observed, that there was no professed 
or intentional irreverence in Saul's conduct; he 
was still on the whole the same he had ever been. 
He outwardly respected the Mosaic ritual — 
about this time he built his first altar to the Lord,^ 20 
and in a certain sense seemed to acknowledge God's 
authority. But nothing shows he considered that 
there was any vast distinction between Israel and 
the nations around them. He was indifferent, and 
cared for none of these things. The chosen people 25 
desired a king like the nations, and such a one 
they received. 

After this he was commanded to " go and smite 
the sinners, the Amalekites, and utterly destroy 
them and their cattle." This was a judgment on 30 
1 1 Sam. xiv. 35. 



24 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

them which God had long decreed, though He had 
delayed it; and He now made Saul the minister 
of His vengeance. But Saul performed it so far 
only as fell in with his own inclination and pur- 
5 poses. He smote, indeed, the Amalekites, and 
"destroyed all the people with the edge of the 
sword" — this exploit had its glory; the best of 
the flocks and herds he spared, and why? to 
sacrifice therewith to the Lord. But since God 
10 had expressly told him to destroy them, what 
was this but to imply, that Divine intimations had 
nothing to do with such matters ? what was it but 
to consider that the established religion was but 
a useful institution, or a splendid pageant suit- 
is able to the dignity of monarchy, but resting on no 
unseen supernatural sanction? Certainly he in 
no sense acted in the fear of God, with the wish 
to please Him, and the conviction that he was in 
His sight. One might consider it mere pride and 
20 willfulness in him, acting in his own way because 
it was his own (which doubtless it was in great 
measure), except that he appears to have had an 
eye to the feelings and opinions of men as to his 
conduct, though not to God's judgment. He 
25 "feared the people and obeyed their voice." 
Again, he spared Agag, the king of the Amalek- 
ites. Doubtless he considered Agag as "his 
brother," as Ahab afterwards called Ben-hadad. 
Agag was a king, and Saul observed towards him 
30 that courtesy and clemency which earthly mon- 
archs observe one towards another, and rightly 



SAUL 25 

when no Divine command comes in the way. But 
the God of Israel required a king after His own 
heart, jealous of idolatry; the people had desired 
a king like the nations around them. 

It is remarkable, moreover, that while he spared 5 
Agag, he attempted to exterminate the Gibeonites 
with the sword, who were tolerated in Israel by 
virtue of an oath taken in their favor by Joshua 
and "the princes of the congregation." This he 
did "in his zeal to the children of Israel andio 
Judah." 1 

From the time of his disobedience in the matter 
of Amalek, Samuel came no more to see Saul, 
whose season of probation was over. The evil 
spirit exerted a more visible influence upon him ; 15 
and God sent Samuel to anoint David privately, 
as the future king of Israel. I need not trace 
further the course of moral degradation which is 
exemplified in Saul's subsequent history. Mere 
natural virtue wears away, when men neglect to 20 
deepen it into religious principle. Saul appears 
in his youth to be unassuming and forbearing; 
in advanced life he is not only proud and gloomy 
(as he ever was in a degree), but cruel, resentful, 
and hard-hearted, which he was not in his youth. 25 
His injurious treatment of David is a long his- 
tory; but his conduct to Ahimelech, the high 
priest, admits of being mentioned here. Ahime- 
lech assisted David in his escape. Saul resolved 
on the death of Ahimelech and all his father's 30 

^ Josh. ix. 2; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-5. 



26 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

house.^ On his guards refusing to execute his 
command, Doeg, a man of Edom, one of the 
nations which Saul was raised up to withstand, 
undertook the atrocious deed. On that day, 
5 eighty-five priests were slain. Afterwards Nob, 
the city of the priests, was smitten with the edge 
of the sword, and all destroyed, " men and women, 
children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and 
sheep." That is, Saul executed more complete 

10 vengeance on the descendants of Levi, the sacred 
tribe, than on the sinners, the Amalekites, who 
laid wait for Israel in the way, on their going up 
from Egypt. 

Last of all, he finishes his bad history by an open 

15 act of apostasy from the God of Israel. His last 
act is like his first, but more significant. He be- 
gan, as we saw, by consulting Samuel as a diviner; 
this showed the direction of his mind. It steadily 
persevered in its evil way — and he ends by con- 

20 suiting a professed sorceress at Endor. The 
Philistines had assembled their hosts; Saul's 
heart trembled greatly — he had no advisers or 
comforters ; Samuel was dead — the priests he had 
himself slain with the sword. He hoped, by magic 

25 rites, which he had formerly denounced, to fore- 
see the issue of the approaching battle. God 
meets him even in the cave of Satanic delusions 
— but as an Antagonist. The rebrobate king 
receives, by the mouth of dead Samuel, who had 

30 once anointed him, the news that he is to be 

1 1 Sam. xxii. 16. 



SAUL 27 

"taken away in God's wrath" — that the Lord 
would deUver Israel, with him, into the hands of 
the Philistines, and that on the morrow he and his 
sons should be numbered with the dead.^ 

The next day " the battle went sore against him, 5 
the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of 
the archers." ^ " Anguish came upon him," ^ and 
he feared to fall into the hands of the uncircum- 
cised. He desired his armor-bearer to draw his 
sword and thrust him through therewith. On his 10 
refusing, he fell upon his own sword, and so came 
to his end. 

1 1 Sam. xxviii. 19. 2 jj^^^^. xxxi. 3. ^ 2 Sam. i. 9. 



EARLY YEARS OF DAVID 

"Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, 
that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, 
and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and 
a comely person, and the Lord is with him." — 
1 Samuel xvi. 18. 

Such is the account given to Saul of David, in 
many respects the most favored of the ancient 
Saints. David is to be accounted the most fa- 
vored, first as being the principal type of Christ, 

5 next as being the author of great part of the book 
of Psalms, which have been used as the Church's 
form of devotion ever since his time. Besides, he 
was a chief instrument of God's providence, both 
in repressing idolatry and in preparing for the 

10 gospel; and he prophesied in an especial manner 
of that Saviour whom he prefigured and preceded. 
Moreover, he was the chosen king of Israel, a man 
after God's own heart, and blessed, not only in 
himself, but in his seed after him. And, further, 

15 to the history of his life a greater share is given of 
the inspired pages than to that of any other of 
God's favored servants. Lastly, he displays in 
his personal character that very temper of mind 
in which his nation, or rather human nature 

20 itself, is especially deficient. Pride and unbelief 

28 



EABLY YEARS OF DAVID 29 

disgrace the history of the chosen people; the 
deUberate love of this world, which was the sin of 
Balaam, and the presumptuous willfulness which 
is exhibited in Saul. But David is conspicuous 
for an affectionate, a thankful, a loyal heart 5 
towards his God and defender, a zeal which was 
as fervent and as docile as Saul's was sullen^ 
and as keen-sighted and as pure as Balaam's was 
selfish and double-minded. Such was the son 
of Jesse the Beth-lehemite ; he stands midway lO 
between Abraham and his predicted seed, Judah 
and the Shiloh, receiving and transmitting the 
promises; a figure of the Christ, and an inspired 
prophet, living in the Church even to the end of 
time, in his office, his history, and his sacred 15 
writings. 

Some remarks on his early life, and on his 
character, as therein displayed, may profitably 
engage our attention at the present time. 

When Saul was finally rejected for not destroy- 20 
ing the Amalekites, Samuel was bid go to Beth- 
lehem, and anoint, as future king of Israel, one 
of the sons of Jesse, who should be pointed out to 
him when he was come there. Samuel accord- 
ingly went thither and held a sacrifice; when, at 25 
his command, Jesse's seven sons were brought by 
their father, one by one, before the prophet ; but 
none of them proved to be the choice of Almighty 
God. David was the youngest and out of the 
way, and it seemed to Jesse as unlikely that God's'30 
choice should fall upon him, as it appeared to 



30 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

Joseph's brethren and to his father, that he and 
his mother and brethren should, as his dreams 
foretold, bow down before him. On Samuel's in- 
quiring, Jesse said, "There remaineth yet the 
5 youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep." 
On Samuel's bidding, he was sent for. " Now 
he was ruddy," the sacred historian proceeds, 
"and withal of a beautiful countenance, and 
goodly to look to. And the Lord said. Arise, 

10 anoint him, for this is he." After Samuel had 

anointed him, " the Spirit of the Lord came upon 

David from that day forward." It is added, 

" But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul." 

David's anointing was followed by no other 

15 immediate mark of God's favor. He was tried 
by being sent back again, in spite of the promise, 
to the care of his sheep, till an unexpected occa- 
sion introduced him to Saul's court. The with- 
drawing of the Spirit of the Lord from Saul was 

20 followed by frequent attacks from an evil spirit, as 
a judgment upon him. His mind was depressed, 
and a "trouble," as it is called, came upon him, 
with symptoms very like those which we now 
refer to derangement. His servants thought that 

^ music, such, perhaps, as was used in the schools 
of the prophets, might soothe and restore him; 
and David was recommended by one of them for 
that purpose, in the words of the text : " Behold, 
I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, 

30 that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant 
man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters. 



EARLY YEABS OF DAVID ol 

and a comely person, and the Lord is with 
him." 

David came in the power of that sacred in- 
fluence vvhom Saul had grieved and rejected. 
The Spirit which inspired his tongue guided his 5 
hand also, and his sacred songs became a medicine 
to Saul's diseased mind. " When the evil spirit 
from God was upon Saul, . . . David took an 
harp, and played with his hand; so Saul w^as re- 
freshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed lo 
from him." Thus he is first introduced to us in 
that character in which he still has praise in the 
Church, as "the anointed of the God of Jacob, 
and the sweet psalmist of Israel." ^ 

Saul " loved David greatly, and he became his 15 
armor-bearer;" but the first trial of his humility 
and patience was not over, while many other trials 
were in store. After a while he was a second time 
sent back to his sheep ; and though there was war 
with the Philistines, and his three eldest brethren 20 
were in the army with Saul, and he had already 
essayed his strength in defending his father's 
flocks from wild beasts, and was "a mighty 
valiant man," yet he contentedly stayed at home 
as a private person, keeping his promise of great- 25 
ness to himself, till his father bade him go to his 
brethren to take them a present from him, and 
report how^ they fared. An accident, as it ap- 
peared to the world, brought him forward. On 
his arrival at the army, he heard the challenge of 30 

^ 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 



32 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

the Philistine champion, Goliath of Gath. I need 
not relate how he was divinely urged to engage 
the giant, how he killed him, and how he was, in 
consequence, again raised to Saul's favor; who, 

5 with an infirmity not inconsistent with the de- 
ranged state of his mind, seems to have altogether 
forgotten him. 

From this time began David's public life; but 
not yet the fulfillment of the promise made to him 

10 by Samuel. He had a second and severer trial 
of patience to endure for many years; the trial 
of "being still" and doing nothing before God's 
time, though he had (apparently) the means in his 
hands of accomplishing the promise for himself. 

15 It was to this trial that Jeroboam afterwards 

showed himself unequal. He, too, was promised 

a kingdom, but he was tempted to seize upon it 

in his own way, and so forfeited God's protection. 

David's victory over Goliath so endeared him 

20 to Saul, that he would not let him go back to his 
father's house. Jonathan, too, Saul's son, at once 
felt for him a warm affection, which deepened into 
a firm friendship. "Saul set him over the men 
of war, and he was accepted in the sight af all the 

25 people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants." ^ 
This prosperous fortune, however, did not long 
continue. As Saul passed through the cities from 
his victory over his enemies, the women of Israel 
came out to meet him, singing and dancing, and 

30 they said, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and 

^ ] Sam. xviii. 5. 



EARLY YEARS OF DAVID 33 

David his ten thousands." Immediately the 
jealous king was "very wroth, and the saying 
displeased him"; his sullenness returned; he 
feared David as a rival ; and " eyed him from that 
day and forward." On the morrow, as David 5 
was playing before him, as at other times, Saul 
threw his javelin at him. After this, Saul dis- 
placed him from his situation at his court, and 
sent him to the war, hoping so to rid himself of 
him by his falling in battle ; but, by God's bless- lo 
ing, David returned victorious. 

In a second war with the Philistines, David was 
successful as before; and Saul, overcome with 
gloomy and malevolent passions, again cast at him 
with his javelin, as he played before him, with the is 
hope of killing him. 

This repeated attempt on his life drove David 
from Saul's court ; and for some years after, that 
is, till Saul's death, he was a wanderer upon the 
earth, persecuted in that country which was after- 20 
wards to be his own kingdom. Here, as in his 
victory over Goliath, Almighty God purposed to 
show us, that it was His hand which set David on 
the throne of Israel. David conquered his enemy 
by a sling and stone, in order, as he said at the 25 
time, that all . . . might know "that the Lord 
saveth not with sword and spear; for the battle 
is the Lord's." ^ Now again, but in a different 
way. His guiding providence was displayed. As 
David slew Goliath without arms, so now he 30 

1 1 Sam. xvii. 47. 



34 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

refrained himself and used them not, though he 
possessed them. Like Abraham, he traversed 
the land of promise "as a strange land/' ^ waiting 
for God's good time. Nay, far more exactly, even 
5 than to Abraham, was it given to David to act and 
suffer that life of faith which the Apostle describes, 
and by which " the elders obtained a good report." 
By faith he wandered about, "being destitute, 
afflicted, evil-entreated, in deserts, and in moun- 

10 tains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth." 
On the other hand, through the same faith, he 
"subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- 
tained promises, waxed valiant in fight, turned to 
flight the armies of the aliens." 

15 On escaping from Saul, he first went to Samuel 
to ask his advice. With him he dwelt some time. 
Driven thence by Saul he went to Bethlehem, his 
father's city, then to Ahimelech, the high priest, 
at Nob. Thence he fled, still through fear of Saul, 

20 to Achish, the Philistine king of Gath; and find- 
ing his life in danger there, he escaped to Adullam, 
where he was joined by his kindred, and put him- 
self at the head of an irregular band of men, such 
as, in the unsettled state of the country, might be 

25 usefully and lawfully employed against the rem- 
nant of the heathen. After this he was driven to 
Hareth, to Keilah, which he rescued from the 
Philistines, to the wilderness of Ziph among the 
mountains, to the wilderness of Maon, to the strong- 

30 holds of Engedi, to the wilderness of Paran. After 

1 Heb. xi. 9. 



EARLY TEARS OF DAVID 85 

a time he again betook himself to Achish, king of 
Gath, who gave him a city; and there it was that 
the news was brought him of the death of Saul in 
battle, which was the occasion of his elevation first 
to the throne of Judah, afterwards to that of all 5 
Israel, according to the promise of God made to 
him by Samuel. 

It need not be denied that, during these years of 
wandering, we find in David's conduct instances 
of infirmity and inconsistency, and some things 10 
which, without being clearly wrong, are yet 
strange and startling in so favored a servant of 
God. With these we are not concerned, except 
so far as a lesson may be gained from them for 
ourselves. We are not at all concerned with them 15 
as regards our estimate of David's character. 
That character is ascertained and sealed by the 
plain word of Scripture, by the praise of Almighty 
God, and is no subject for our criticism; and if we 
find in it traits which we cannot fully reconcile 20 
with the approbation divinely given to him, we 
must take it in faith to be what it is said to be, 
and wait for the future revelations of Him who 
"overcomes when He is judged." Therefore I 
dismiss these matters now, when I am engaged 25 
in exhibiting the eminent obedience and mani- 
fold virtues of David. On the whole his situation 
during these years of trial was certainly that of a 
witness for Almighty God, one who does good and 
suffers for it, nay, suffers on rather than rid him- 30 
self from suffering by any unlawful act. 



36 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

Now, then, let us consider what was, as far as 

we can understand, his especial grace, what is his 

gift; as faith was Abraham's distinguishing virtue, 

meekness the excellence of Moses, self-mastery the 

5 gift especially conspicuous in Joseph. 

This question may best be answered by con- 
sidering the purpose for which he was raised up. 
When Saul was disobedient, Samuel said to him, 
" Thy kingdom shall not continue : the Lord hath 

10 sought Him a man after His own heart, and the 
Lord hath commanded him to be captain over 
His people, because thou hast not kept that which 
the Lord commanded thee." ^ The office to 
which first Saul and then David were called was 

15 different from that with which other favored 
men before them had been intrusted. From the 
time of Moses, when Israel became a nation, God 
had been the king of Israel, and His chosen 
servants, not delegates, but mere organs of His 

20 will. Moses did not direct the Israelites by his 
own wisdom, but he spake to them, as God spake 
from the pillar of the cloud. Joshua, again, was 
merely a sword in the hand of God. Samuel was 
but His minister and interpreter. God acted, the 

25lsraehtes "stood still and saw" His miracles, then 
followed. But, when they had rejected Him 
from being king over them, then their chief ruler 
was no longer a mere organ of His power and will, 
but had a certain authority intrusted to him, 

30 more or less independent of supernatural direc- 
^ 1 Sam. xiii. 14, 



EARLY YEARS OF DAVID 37 

tion; and acted, not so much from God, as for 
God, and in the place of God. David, when taken 
from the sheepfolds " to feed Jacob His people and 
Israel His inheritance," "fed them," in the words 
of the Psalm, "with a faithful and true heart; 5 
and ruled them prudently with all his power." ^ 
From this account of his office, it is obvious that 
his very first duty was that of fidelity to Almighty 
God in the trust committed to him. He had 
power put into his hands, in a sense in which lO 
neither Moses had it nor Samuel. He was charged 
with a certain office, which he was bound to 
administer according to his abiUty, so as best to 
promote the interests of Him who appointed him. 
Saul had neglected his Master's honor; but 15 
David, in this an eminent type of Christ, " came 
to do God's will" as a viceroy in Israel, and, as 
being tried and found faithful, he is especially 
called "a man after God's own heart." 

David's peculiar excellence, then, is that of 20 
fidelity to the trust committed to him; a firm, un- 
compromising, single-hearted devotion to the 
cause of his God, and a burning zeal for His 
honor. 

This characteristic virtue is especially illus-25 
trated in the early years of his life which have 
engaged our attention. He was tried therein and 
found faithful; before he was put in power, it 
was proved whether he could obey. Till he came 
to the throne, he was like Moses or Samuel, an so 

1 Ps. lxx\dii. 71-73. 



38 CIIABACTER SKETCHES 

instrument in God's hands, bid do what was told 
him and nothing more ; — having borne this trial 
of obedience well, in which Saul had failed, then 
at length he was intrusted with a sort of dis- 

5cretionary power, to use in his Master's service. 

Observe how David was tried, and what 

various high qualities of mind he displayed in 

the course of the trial. First, the promise of 

greatness was given him, and Samuel anointed 

10 him. Still he stayed in the sheepfolds; and 
though called away by Saul for a time, yet re- 
turned contentedly when Saul released him from 
attendance. How difficult is it for such as know 
they have gifts suitable to the Church's need to 

15 refrain themselves, till God make a way for their 
use ! and the trial would be the more severe in 
David's case, in proportion to the ardor and 
energy of his mind; yet he fainted not under it. 
Afterwards for seven 3^ears, as the time appears 

20 to be, he withstood the strong temptation, ever 
before his eyes, of acting without God's guidance, 
when he had the means of doing so. Though 
skillful in arms, popular with his countrymen, 
successful against the enemy, the king's son-in- 

25 law, and on the other hand grievously injured by 
Saul, who not only continually sought his life, 
but even suggested to him a traitor's conduct 
by accusing him of treason, and whose life was 
several times in his hands, yet he kept his 

30 honor pure and unimpeachable. He feared God 
and honored the king; and this at a time of 



EARLY YEARS OF DAVID 39 

life especially exposed to the temptations of 
ambition. 

There is a resemblance between the early his- 
tory of David and that of Joseph. Both dis- 
tinguished for piety in youth, the youngest and 5 
the despised of their respective brethren, they 
are raised, after a long trial to a high station, 
as ministers of God's Providence. Joseph was 
tempted to a degrading adultery; David was 
tempted by ambition. Both were tempted toio 
be traitors to their masters and benefactors. 
Joseph's trial was brief; but his conduct under it 
evidenced settled habits of virtue which he could 
call to his aid at a moment's notice. A long 
imprisonment followed, the consequence of his 15 
obedience, and borne with meekness and patience; 
but it was no part of his temptation, because, 
when once incurred, release was out of his power. 
David's trial, on the other hand, lasted for years, 
and grew stronger as time went on. His master, 20 
too, far from "putting all that he had into his 
hand," ^ sought his life. Continual opportunity 
of avenging himself incited his passions; self- 
defense, and the Divine promise, were specious ar- 
guments to seduce his reason. Yet he mastered 25 
his heart — he was " still " ; he kept his hands clean 
and his lips guileless — he was loyal throughout 
— and in due time inherited the promise. 

Let us call to mind some of the circumstances 
of his steadfastness recorded in the history. 30 

• Gen. xxxix. 4. 



40 CHABACTER SKETCHES 

He was about twenty-three years old when he 
slew the Philistine; yet, when placed over Saul's 
men of war, in the first transport of his victory, 
we are told he " behaved himself wisely." ^ 

6 When fortune turned, and Saul became jealous 
of him, still " David behaved himself wisely in 
all his ways, and the Lord was with him." How 
like is this to Joseph under different circumstances ! 
" Wherefore when Saul saw that he behaved him- 

10 self very wisely he was afraid of him; and all 
Israel and Judah loved David." Again, "And 
David behaved himself more wisely than all the 
servants of Saul, so that his name was much set 
by." Here, in shifting fortunes, is evidence of 

15 that staid, composed frame of mind in his youth, 
which he himself describes in the one hundred 
and thirty-first Psalm. " My heart is not haughty, 
nor mine eyes lofty. . . . Surely I have behaved 
and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his 

20 mother." 

The same modest deportment marks his sub- 
sequent conduct. He consistently seeks counsel 
of God. When he fled from Saul he went to 
Samuel; afterwards we find him following the 

25 directions of the prophet Gad, and afterwards of 
Abiathar the high priest.^ Here his character is 
in full contrast to the character of Saul. 

Further, consider his behavior towards Saul, 
when he had him in his power; it displays a most 

^ 1 Sam. xviii. 5-30. 

2 Ibid. xxii. 5, 20 : xxiii. 6. 



EARLY YEARS OF DAVID 41 

striking and admirable union of simple faith and 
unblemished loyalty. 

Saul, while in pursuit of him, went into a cave 
in Engedi. David surprised him there, and his 
companions advised to seize him, if not to take 5 
his life. They said, " Behold the day of which the 
Lord said unto thee." ^ David, in order to show 
Saul how entirely his life had been in his power, 
arose and cut off a part of his robe privately. 
After he had done it, his " heart smote him" even lo 
for this slight freedom, as if it were a disrespect 
offered towards his king and father. " He said 
unto his men. The Lord forbid that I should do 
this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, 
to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is 
is the anointed of the Lord." When Saul left 
the cave, David followed him and cried, "My 
Lord the king. And when Saul looked behind 
him, David stooped with his face to the earth 
and bowed himself." He hoped that he could 20 
now convince Saul of his integrity. " Wherefore 
hearest thou men's words," he asked, "saying, 
Behold, David seeketh thy hurt? Behold, this 
day thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had 
delivered thee to-day into mine hand in the cave : 25 
and some bade me kill thee. . . . Moreover, my 
father, see, yea see the skirt of thy robe in my 
hand : for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe, 
and killed thee not, know thou and see, that 
there is neither evil nor transgression in mine 30 

1 1 Sam. xxiv. 4. 



42 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

hand, and I have not sinned against thee: yet 
thou huntest my soul to take it. The Lord judge 
between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me 
of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. 
5 . . . After whom is the king of Israel come out ? 
after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, 
after a flea. The Lord therefore judge . . . and 
see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of 
thine hand." Saul was for the time overcome; 

10 he said, "Is this thy voice, my son David? and 
Saul lifted up his voice and wept." And he said, 
"Thou art more righteous than I; for thou hast 
rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee 
evil." He added, " And now, behold, I know well 

15 that thou shalt surely be king." At another time 
David surprised Saul in the midst of his camp, 
and his companion would have killed him; but 
he said, " Destroy him not, for who can stretch 
forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and 

20 be guiltless?" ^ Then, as he stood over him, he 
meditated sorrowfully on his master's future 
fortunes, while he himself refrained from inter- 
fering with God's purposes. "Surely the Lord 
shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or 

25 he shall descend into battle and perish." David 
retired from the enemy's camp; and when at a safe 
distance, roused Saul's guards, and blamed them 
for their negligent watch, which had allowed a 
stranger to approach the person of their king. Saul 

30 was moved the second time ; the miserable man, 

^ 1 Sam. XX vi. 9, 



EAIiLY YEARS OF DAVID 43 

as if waking from a dream wliich hung about 
him, said, ''I have sinned; return, ni}'- son David 
. . . behold, I have played the fool, and have erred 
exceedingly." He added, truth overcoming him, 
"Blessed be thou, my son David; thou shalt 5 
both do great things, and also shalt still prevail." 
How beautiful are these passages in the history 
of the chosen king of Israel ! How do they draw 
our hearts towards him, as one whom in his 
private character it must have been an extreme lo 
privilege and a great delight to know ! Surely, 
the blessings of the patriarchs descended in a 
united flood upon " the lion of the tribe of Judah," 
the type of the true Redeemer who was to come. 
He inherits the prompt faith and magnanimity 15 
of Abraham; he is simple as Isaac; he is humble 
as Jacob; he has the youthful wisdom and self- 
possession, the tenderness, the affectionateness, 
and the firmness of Joseph. And, as his own 
especial gift, he has an overflowing thankfulness, 20 
an ever-burning devotion, a zealous fidelity to 
his God, a high unshaken loyalty towards his 
king, an heroic bearing in all circumstances, such 
as the multitude of men see to be great, but can- 
not understand. Be it our blessedness, unless 25 
the wish be presumptuous, so to acquit ourselves 
in troubled times; cheerful amid anxieties, col- 
lected in dangers, generous towards enemies, 
patient in pain and sorrow, subdued in good 
fortune ! How manifold are the ways of the 30 
Spirit, how various the graces which He imparts; 



44 CHABACTEB SKETCHES 

what depth and width is there in that moral truth 
and virtue for which we are created ! Contrast 
one with another the Scripture Saints; how dif- 
ferent are they, yet how aUke ! how fitted for 
5 their respective circumstances, yet how unearthly, 
how settled and composed in the faith and fear 
of God ! As in the Services, so in the patterns of 
the Church, God has met all our needs, all our 
frames of mind. "Is any afflicted? let him 

10 pray; is any merry? let him sing Psalms."^ 
Is any in joy or in sorrow? there are Saints at 
hand to encourage and guide him. There is 
Abraham for nobles, Job for men of wealth and 
merchandise, Moses for patriots, Samuel for 

15 rulers, Elijah for reformers, Joseph for those who 
rise into distinction; there is Daniel for the for- 
lorn, Jeremiah for the persecuted, Hannah for the 
downcast, Ruth for the friendless,. the Shunam- 
mite for the matron, Caleb for the soldier, Boaz 

20 for the farmer, Mephibosheth for the subject; 
but none is vouchsafed to us in more varied lights, 
and with more abundant and more affecting les- 
sons, whether in his history or in his writings, 
than he whose eulogy is contained in the words of 

25 the text, as cunning in playing, and a mighty 
valiant man, and prudent in matters, and comely 
in person, and favored by Almighty God. May 
we be taught, as he was, to employ the gifts, in 
whatever measure given us, to God's honor and 

30 glory, and to the extension of that true and only 
faith which is the salvation of the soul ! 

1 Jarnos v. 13. 



BASIL AND GREGORY 

What are these discourses that you hold one with 
another, as you walk and are sad ?" 



The instruments raised up by Almighty God 
for the accomplishment of His purposes are of 
two kinds, equally gifted with faith and piety, 
but from natural temper and talent, education, 
or other circumstances, differing in the means by 5 
which they promote their sacred cause. The 
first of these are men of acute and ready mind, 
with accurate knowledge of human nature, and 
large plans, and persuasive and attractive bear- 
ing, genial, sociable, and popular, endued with 10 
prudence, patience, instinctive tact and decision 
in conducting matters, as well as boldness and 
zeal. Such in a measure we may imagine the 
single-minded, the intrepid, the much-enduring 
Hildebrand, who, at a time when society was form- 15 
ing itself anew, was the saviour, humanly speak- 
ing, of the City of God. Such, in an earlier age, 
was the majestic Ambrose; such the never- 
wearied Athanasius. These last-named lumina- 
ries of the Church came into public life early, 20 
and thus learned how to cope with the various 
46 



46 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

tempers, views, and measures of the men they 
encountered there. Athanasius was but twenty- 
seven when he went with Alexander to the Nicene 
Council, and the year after he was Bishop of 
5 Alexandria. Ambrose was consecrated soon after 
the age of thirty. 

Again, there is an instrument in the hand of 
Providence, of less elaborate and splendid work- 
manship, less rich in its political endowments, 

10 so to call them, 3^et not less beautiful in its tex- 
ture, nor less precious in its material. Such is 
the retired and thoughtful student, who remains 
years and years in the solitude of a college or a 
monastery, chastening his soul in secret, raising 

15 it to high thought and single-minded purpose, 
and when at length called into active life, con- 
ducting himself with firmness, guilelessness, zeal 
like a flaming fire, and all the sweetness of purity 
and integrity. Such an one is often unsuccessful 

20 in his own day; he is too artless to persuade, too 
severe to please; unskilled in the weaknesses of 
human nature, unfurnished in the resources of 
ready wit, negligent of men's applause, unsus- 
picious, open-hearted, he does his work, and so 

25 leaves it ; and it seems to die ; but in the genera- 
tion after him it lives again, and on the long run 
it is difficult to say, which of the two classes of 
men has served the cause of truth the more effec- 
tually. Such, perhaps, was Basil, who issued 

30 from the solitudes of Pontus to rule like a king, 
and minister like the lowest in the kingdom ; yet 



BASIL AND GREGORY 47 

to meet little but disappointment, and to quit 
life prematurely in pain and sorrow. Such was 
his friend, the accomplished Gregory, however 
different in other respects from him, who left his 
father's roof for an heretical city, raised a church 5 
there, and was driven back into retirement by 
his own people, as soon as his triumph over the 
false creed was secured. Such, perhaps, St. Peter 
Damiani in the middle age; such St. Anselm, 
such St. Edmund. No comparison is, of course, lo 
attempted here between the religious excellence 
of the two descriptions of men; each of them 
serves God according to the peculiar gifts given 
to him. If we might continue our instances 
by way of comparison, we should say that St. 15 
Paul reminds us of the former, and Jeremiah of 
the latter. . . . 

It often happens that men of very dissimilar 
talents and tastes are attracted together by their 
very dissimilitude. They live in intimacy for a 20 
time, perhaps a long time, till their circumstances 
alter, or some sudden event comes to try them. 
Then the peculiarities of their respective minds 
are brought out into action; and quarrels ensue, 
which end in coolness or separation. It would 25 
not be right or true to say that this is exemplified 
in the instance of the two blessed Apostles, whose 
"sharp contention" is related in the Book of 
Acts; for they had been united in spirit once for 
all by a Divine gift ; and yet their strife reminds 30 
us of what takes place in life continually. And it 



48 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

so far resembled the everyday quarrels of friends, 
in that it arose from difference of temper and 
character in those favored servants of God. 
The zealous heart of the Apostle of the Gentiles 

5 endured not the presence of one who had swerved 
in his course; the indulgent spirit of Barnabas 
felt that a first fault ought not to be a last trial. 
Such are the two main characters which are found 
in the Church, — high energy, and sweetness of 

10 temper; far from incompatible, of course, united 
in Apostles, though in different relative propor- 
tions, yet only partially combined in ordinary 
Christians, and often altogether parted from each 
other. 

15 This contrast of character, leading, first, to 
intimacy, then to differences, is interestingly dis- 
played, though painfully, in one passage of the 
history of Basil and Gregory: Gregory the af- 
fectionate, the tender-hearted, the man of quick 

20 feelings, the accomplished, the eloquent preacher, 
— and Basil, the man of firm resolve and hard 
deeds, the high-minded ruler of Christ's flock, 
the diligent laborer in the field of ecclesiastical 
politics. Thus they differed; yet not as if they 

25 had not much in common still; both had the 
blessing and the discomfort of a sensitive mind; 
both were devoted to an ascetic life; both were 
men of classical tastes; both were special cham- 
pions of the Catholic creed; both were skilled 

30 in argument, and successful in their use of it; 
both were in highest place in the Church, the one 



BASIL AND GBEGORY 49 

Exarch of Csesarea, the other Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople. I will now attempt to sketch the 
history of their intimacy. 



II 

Basil and Gregory were both natives of Cap- 
padocia, but here, again, under different circum- 5 
stances; Basil was born of a good family, and 
with Christian ancestors : Gregory was the son of 
the Bishop of Nazianzus, who had been brought 
up an idolater, or rather an Hypsistarian, a 
mongrel sort of religionist, part Jew, part Pagan, lo 
He was brought over to Christianity by the efforts 
of his wife Nonna, and at Nazianzus admitted by 
baptism into the Church. In process of time he 
was made bishop of that city; but not having a 
very firm hold of the faith, he was betrayed in 15 
360 into signing'the Ariminian creed, which caused 
him much trouble, and from which at length his 
son recovered him. Csesarea being at no unsur- 
mountable distance from Nazianzus, the two 
friends had known each other in their own coun- 20 
try ; but their intimacy began at Athens, whither 
they separately repaired for the purposes of edu- 
cation. This was about a.d. 350, when each of 
them was twenty-one years of age. Gregory 
came to the seat of learning shortly before Basil, 25 
and thus was able to be his host and guide on his 
arrival; but fame had reported Basil's merits 
before he came, and he seems to have made his 



50 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

way, in a place of all others most difficult to a 
stranger, with a facility peculiar to himself. He 
soon found himself admired and respected by 
his fellow-students; but Gregory was his only 
5 friend, and shared with him the reputation of 
talents and attainments. They remained at 
Athens four or five years; and, at the end of the 
time, made the acquaintance of Julian, since of 
evil name in history as the Apostate. Gregory 
10 thus describes in after life his early intimacy 
with Basil : 

" Athens and letters followed on my stage ; 
Others may tell how I encountered them ; — 
How in the fear of God, and foremost found 

15 Of those who knew a more than mortal lore ; — 
And how, amid the venture and the rush 
Of maddened youth with youth in rivalry, 
My tranquil course ran like some fabled spring, 
Which bubbles fresh beneath the turbid brine; 

20 Not drawn away by those who lure to ill, 
But drawing dear ones to the better part. 
There, too, I gained a further gift of God, 
Who made me friends with one of wisdom high, 
Without compeer in learning and in life. 

25 Ask ye his name? — in sooth, 'twas Basil, since 
My life's great gain, — and then my fellow dear 
In home, and studious search, and knowledge earned. 
May I not boast how in our day we moved 
A truest pair, not without name in Greece; 

30 Had all things common, and one only soul 
In lodgment of a double outward frame? 
Our special bond, the thought of God above, 
And the high longing after holy things. 
And each of us was bold to trust in each, 



BASIL AND GREGORY 51 

Unto the emptying of our deepest hearts ; 
And then we loved the more, for sympathy 
Pleaded in each, and knit the twain in one." 

The friends had been educated for rhetoricians, 
and their oratorical powers were such, that they 5 
seemed to have every prize in prospect which a 
secular ambition could desire. Their names were 
known far and wide, their attainments acknowl- 
edged by enemies, and they themselves personally 
popular in their circle of acquaintance. It was 10 
under these circumstances that they took the 
extraordinary resolution of quitting the world 
together, — extraordinary the world calls it, 
utterly perplexed to find that any conceivable 
objects can, by any sane person, be accounted 15 
better than its own gifts and favors. They re- 
solved to seek baptism of the Church, and to 
consecrate their gifts to the service of the Giver. 
With characters of mind very different — the 
one grave, the other lively ; the one desponding, 20 
the other sanguine; the one with deep feelings, 
the other with feelings acute and warm; — they 
agreed together in holding, that the things that 
are seen are not to be compared to the things that 
are not seen. They quitted the world, while it 25 
entreated them to stay. 

What passed when they were about to leave 
Athens represents as in a figure the parting which 
they and the world took of each other. When 
the day of valediction arrived, their companions 30 
and equals, nay, some of their tutors, came about 



52 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

them, and resisted their departure by entreaties, 
arguments, and even by violence. This occasion 
showed, also, their respective dispositions; for 
the firm Basil persevered, and went; the tender- 

5 hearted Gregory was softened, and stayed awhile 
longer. Basil, indeed, in spite of the reputation 
which attended him, had, from the first, felt dis- 
appointment with the celebrated abode of philoso- 
phy and literature; and seems to have given up 

10 the world from a simple conviction of its emptiness. 

"He," says Gregory, "according to the way of human 
nature, when, on suddenly faUing in with what we hoped 
to be greater, we find it less than its fame, experienced 
some such feeling, began to be sad, grew impatient, and 
15 could not congratulate himself on his place of residence. 
He sought an object which hope had drawn for him; 
and he called Athens 'hollow blessedness.' " 

Gregory himself, on the contrary, looked at 
things more cheerfully; as the succeeding sen- 
2otences show. 

"Thus Basil; but I removed the greater part of his 
sorrow, meeting it with reason, and smoothing it with 
reflections, and saying (what was most true) that charac- 
ter is not at once understood, nor except by long time 
25 and perfect intimacy ; nor are studies estimated, by 
those who are submitted to them, on a brief trial and 
by slight evidence. Thus I reassured him, and by con- 
tinual trials of each other, I bound myself to him." — 
Orat. 43. 

Ill 

30 Yet Gregory had inducements of his own to 
leave the world, not to insist on his love of Basil's 



BASIL AND GREGORY 53 

company. His mother had devoted him to God, 
both before and after his birth ; and when he was 
a child he had a remarkable dream, which made 
a great impression upon him. 

"While I was asleep," he says in one of his poems, 5 
which runs thus in prose, " a dream came to me, which 
drew me readily to the desire of chastity. Two virgin 
forms, in white garments, seemed to shine close to me. 
Both were fair and of one age, and their ornament lay 
in their want of ornament, which is a woman' s beauty. 10 
No gold adorned their neck, nor jacinth; nor had they 
the delicate spinning of the silkworm. Their fair robe 
was bound with a girdle, and it reached down to their 
ankles. Their head and face were concealed by a veil, 
and their eyes were fixed on the ground. The fair glow 15 
of modesty was on both of them, as far as could be seen 
under their thick covering. Their lips were closed in 
silence, as the rose in its dewy leaves. When I saw 
them, I rejoiced much; for I said that they were far 
more than mortals. And they in turn kept kissing me, 20 
while I drew light from their lips, fondling me as a dear 
son. And when I asked who and whence the women 
were, the one answered, 'Purity,' the other, 'Sobriety'; 
* We stand by Christ, the King, and delight in the beauty 
of the celestial virgins. Come, then, child, unite thy 25 
mind to our mind, thy light to our light ; so shall we carry 
thee aloft in all brightness through the air, and place 
thee by the radiance of the immortal Trinity.' " — 
Carm. p. 930. 

He goes on to say, that he never lost the im- 30 
pression this made upon him, as "a spark of 
heavenly fire," or "a taste of divine milk and 
honey." 

As far, then, as these descriptions go, one might 



54 CHABACTER SKETCHES 

say that Gregor3^'s abandonment of the world 
arose from an early passion, as it may be called, 
for a purity higher than his own nature; and 
Basil's, from a profound sense of the world's 

5 nothingness and the world's defilements. Both 
seem to have viewed it as a sort of penitential 
exercise, as well as a means towards perfection. 

When they had once resolved to devote them- 
selves to the service of religion, the question 

10 arose, how they might best improve and employ 
the talents committed to them. Somehow, the 
idea of marrying and taking orders, or taking 
orders and marrying, building or improving their 
parsonages, and showing forth the charities, the 

15 humanities, and the gentilities of a family man, 
did not suggest itself to their minds. They fancied 
that they must give up wife, children, property, 
if they would be perfect; and, this being taken 
for granted, that their choice lay between two 

20 modes of life, both of which they regarded as 
extremes. Here, then, for a time, they were in 
some perplexity. Gregory speaks of two ascetic 
disciplines, that of the solitary or hermit, and that 
of the secular; ^ one of which, he says, profits 

25 a man's self, the other his neighbor. Midway, 
however, between these lay the Coenobite, or 
what we commonly call the monastic; removed 
from the world, yet acting in a certain select 
circle. And this was the rule which the friends 

30 at length determined to adopt, withdrawing from 

1 d^vyes and fj-iyddes. 



BASIL AND GREGORY 55 

mixed society in order to be of the greater service 
to it. 

The following is the passage in which Gregory 
describes the life which was the common choice 
of both of them: 5 

"Fierce was the whirlwind of my storm-toss' d mind, 

Searching, ' mid hohest ways, a hoher still. 

Long had I nerved me, in the depths to sink 

Thoughts of the flesh, and then more strenuously. 

Yet, while I gazed upon diviner aims, 10 

I had not wit to single out the best : 

For, as is aye the wont in things of earth. 

Each had its evil, each its nobleness. 

I was the pilgrim of a toilsome course, 

Who had o'erpast the waves, and now look'd round, 15 

With anxious eye, to track his road by land. 

Then did the awful Thesbite's image rise. 

His highest Carmel, and his food uncouth; 

The Baptist wealthy in his solitude; 

And the unencumbered sons of Jonadab. 20 

But soon I felt the love of holy books. 

The spirit beaming bright in learned lore. 

Which deserts could not hear, nor silence tell. 

Long was the inward strife, till ended thus: — 

I saw, when men lived in the fretful world, 25 

They vantaged other men, but risked the while 

The calmness and the pureness of their hearts. 

They who retired held an uprighter port, 

And raised their eyes with quiet strength towards heaven ; 

Yet served self only, unfraternally. 30 

And so, 'twixt these and those, I struck my path, 

To meditate with the free solitary, 

Yet to live secular, and serve mankind." 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 

The just perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and 
men of mercy are taken away, for there is none to 
understand; for the just man is taken away from 
before the face of evil." 



I BEGAN by directing the reader's attention to 
the labors of two great bishops, who restored 
the faith of Christianity where it had long been 
obscured. Now, I will put before him, by way 

5 of contrast, a scene of the overthrow of religion, 
— the extinction of a candlestick, — effected, too, 
by champions of the same heretical creed which 
Basil and Gregory successfully resisted. It will 
be found in the history of the last days of the 

10 great Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa. 
The truth triumphed in the East by the power of 
preaching ; it was extirpated in the South by the 
edge of the sword. 

Though it may not be given us to appropriate 

15 the prophecies of the Apocalypse to the real 
events to which they belong, yet it is impossible 
to read its inspired pages, and then to turn to 
the dissolution of the Roman empire, without 
seeing a remarkable agreement, on the whole, 

20 between the calamities of that period and the 
sacred prediction. There is a plain announce- 
56 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 57 

ment in the inspired page, of " Woe, woe, woe, to 
the inhabitants of the earth"; an announcement 
of "hail and fire mingled with blood," the con- 
flagration of " trees and green grass," the destruc- 
tion of ships, the darkening of the sun, and the 5 
poisoniig of the rivers over a third of their course. 
There is a clear prophecy of revolutions on the 
face of the earth and in the structure of society. 
And, on the other hand, let us observe how fully 
such general foretokenings are borne out, among lo 
other passages of history, in the Vandalic con- 
quest of Africa. 

The coast of Africa, between the great desert 
and the Mediterranean, was one of the most fruit- 
ful and opulent portions of the Roman world. 15 
The eastern extremity of it was more especially 
connected with the empire, containing in it 
Carthage, Hippo, and other towns, celebrated as 
being sees of the Christian Church, as well as 
places of civil importance. In the spring of the 20 
year 428, the Vandals, Arians by creed, and bar- 
barians by birth and disposition, crossed the 
Straits of Gibraltar, and proceeded along this 
fertile district, bringing with them devastation 
and captivity on ev^ery side. They abandoned 25 
themselves to the most savage cruelties and ex- 
cesses. They pillaged, ravaged, burned, mas- 
sacred all that came in their way, sparing not even 
the fruit trees, which might have afforded some 
poor food to the remnant of the population, who 30 
had escaped from them into caves, the recesses 



68 CHABACTER SKETCHES 

of the mountains^ or into vaults. Twice did this 
desolating pestilence sweep over the face of the 
country. 

The fury of the Vandals was especially exercised 

5 towards the memorials of religion. Churches, 
cemeteries, monasteries, were objects of their 
fiercest hatred and most violent assaults. They 
broke into the places of worship, cut to pieces all 
internal decorations, and then set fire to them. 

10 They tortured bishops and clergy with the hope of 
obtaining treasure. The names of some of the 
victims of their ferocity are preserved. Mansuetus, 
Bishop of tJtica, was burnt alive; Papinianus, 
Bishop of Vite, was laid upon red-hot plates of 

15 iron. This was near upon the time when the 
third General Council was assembling at Ephesus, 
which, from the insecure state of the roads, and 
the universal misery which reigned among them, 
the African bishops were prevented from attend- 

2oing. The Clergy, the religious brotherhoods, the 
holy virgins, were scattered all over the country. 
The daily sacrifice was stopped, the sacraments 
could not be obtained, the festivals of the Church 
passed unnoticed. At length, only three cities 

25 remained un visited by the general desolation, — 
Carthage, Hippo, and Cirtha. 

II 

Hippo was the see of St. Austin, then seventy- 
four years of age (forty almost of which had been 
passed in ministerial labors), and warned, by 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 59 

the law of nature, of the approach of dissolution. 
It was as if the light of prosperity and peace 
were fading away from the African Church, as 
sank the bodily powers of its great earthly orna- 
ment and stay. At this time, when the terrors 5 
of the barbaric invasion spread on all sides, a 
bishop wrote to him to ask whether it was allowable 
for the ruler of a Church to leave the scene of his 
pastoral duties in order to save his life. Differ- 
ent opinions had heretofore been expressed on lo 
this question. In Augustine's own country Ter- 
tullian had maintained that flight was unlawful, 
but he was a Montanist when he so wrote. On 
the other hand, Cyprian had actually fled, and 
had defended his conduct when questioned by 15 
the clergy of Rome. His contemporaries, Diony- 
sius of Alexandria, and Gregory of Neocsesarea, 
had fled also; as had Poly carp before them, and 
Athanasius after them. 

Athanasius also had to defend his flight, and he 20 
defended it, in a work still extant, thus : First, 
he observes, it has the sanction of numerous 
Scripture precedents. Thus, in the instance of 
confessors under the old covenant, Jacob fled 
from Esau, Moses from Pharao, David from Saul ; 25 
Elias concealed himself from Achab three years, 
and the sons of the prophets were hid by Abdias 
in a cave from Jezebel. In like manner under 
the Gospel, the disciples hid themselves for fear 
of the Jews, and St. Paul was let down in a basket 30 
over the wall at Damascus. On the other hand. 



60 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

no instance can be adduced of overboldness and 
headstrong daring in the saints of Scripture. 
But our Lord Himself is the chief exemplar of 
fleeing from persecution. As a child in arms He 
5 had to flee into Egypt. When He returned, He 
still shunned Judea, and retired to Nazareth. 
After raising Lazarus, on the Jews seeking His 
life, " He walked no more openly among them," 
but retreated to the neighborhood of the desert. 

10 When they took up stones to cast at Him, He 
hid Himself; when they attempted to cast Him 
down headlong, He made His way through them: 
when He heard of the Baptist's death. He retired 
across the lake into a desert place, apart. If it 

15 be said that He did so, because His time was not 
yet come, and that when it was come, He de- 
livered up Himself, we must ask, in reply, how a 
man can know that his time is come, so as to 
have a right to act as Christ acted? And since 

20 we do not know, we must have patience; and, 
till God by His own act determines the time, we 
must "wander in sheepskins and goatskins," 
rather than take the matter into our own hands; 
as even Saul, the persecutor, was left by David 

25 in the hands of God, whether He would "strike 
him, or his day should come to die, or he should 
go down to battle and perish." 

If God's servants, proceeds Athanasius, have 
at any time presented themselves before their 

30 persecutors, it was at God's command : thus Elias 
showed himself to Achab; so did the prophet 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 61 

from Juda, to Jeroboam; and St. Paul appealed 
to Caesar. Flight, so far from implying coward- 
ice, requires often greater courage than not to 
flee. It is a greater trial of heart. Death is an 
end of all trouble ; he who flees is ever expecting 5 
death, and dies daily. Job's life was not to be 
touched by Satan, yet was not his fortitude 
shown in what he suffered? Exile is full of 
miseries. The after-conduct of the saints showed 
they had not fled for fear. Jacob, on his death- lo 
bed, contemned death, and blessed each of the 
twelve Patriarchs; Moses returned, and pre- 
sented himself before Pharao; David was a 
valiant warrior; Elias rebuked Achab and 
Ochazias; Peter and Paul, who had once hid 15 
themselves, offered themselves to martyrdom at 
Rome. And so acceptable was the previous 
flight of these men to Almighty God, that we 
read of His showing them some special favor 
during it. Then it was that Jacob had the 20 
vision of Angels; Moses saw the burning bush; 
David wrote his prophetic Psalms; Elias raised 
the dead, and gathered the people on Mount 
Carmel. How would the Gospel ever have been 
preached throughout the world, if the Apostles 25 
had not fled? And, since their time, those, too, 
who have become martyrs, at first fled ; or, if they 
advanced to meet their persecutors, it was by 
some secret suggestion of the Divine Spirit. But, 
above all, while these instances abundantly illus- 30 
trate the rule of duty in persecution, and the 



62 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

temper of mind necessary in those who observe 
it, we have that duty itself declared in a plain 
precept by no other than our Lord : " When they 
shall persecute you in this city," He says, "flee 

5 into another;" and "let them that are in Judea 
flee unto the mountains." 

Thus argues the great Athanasius, living in 
spirit with the saints departed, while full of 
labor and care here on earth. For the argu- 

10 ments on the other side, let us turn to a writer, 
not less vigorous in mind, but less subdued in 
temper. Thus writes Tertullian on the same 
subject, then a Montanist, a century and a half 
earlier: Nothing happens, he says, without 

15 God's will. Persecution is sent by Him, to put 
His servants to the test; to divide between good 
and bad : it is a trial ; what man has any right 
to interfere ? He who gives the prize, alone can 
assign the combat. Persecution is more than 

20 permitted, it is actually appointed by Almighty 
God. It does the Church much good, as leading 
Christians to increased seriousness while it lasts. 
It comes and goes at God's ordering. Satan 
could not touch Job, except so far as God gave 

25 permission. He could not touch the Apostles, 
except as far as an opening was allowed in the 
words, "Satan hath desired to have you, but I 
have prayed for thee," Peter, "and thou, being 
once converted, confirm thy brethren." We 

30 pray, " Lead us not into temptation, but deliver 
us from evil;" why, if we may deliver ourselves? 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 63 

Satan is permitted access to us, either for punish- 
ment, as in Saul's case, or for our chastisement. 
Since the persecution comes from God, we may 
not lawfully avoid it, nor can we avoid it. We 
cannot, because He is all powerful ; we must not, 5 
because He is all good. We should leave the 
matter entirely to God. As to the command of 
fleeing from city to city, this was temporary. It 
was intended to secure the preaching of the Gos- 
pel to the nations. While the Apostles preached 10 
to the Jews, — till they had preached to the 
Gentiles, — they were to flee ; but one might as 
well argue, that we now are not to go "into the 
way of the Gentiles," but to confine ourselves 
to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," as that 15 
we are now to "flee from city to city." Nor, in- 
deed, was going from city to city a flight ; it was 
a continued preaching; not an accident, but a 
rule : whether persecuted or not, they were to go 
about; and before they had gone through the 20 
cities of Israel, the Lord was to come. The 
command contemplated only those very cities. 
If St. Paul escaped out of Damascus by night, 
yet afterwards, against the prayers of the disciples 
and the prophecy of Agabus, he went up to Jeru-25 
salem. Thus the command to flee did not last 
even through the lifetime of the Apostles; and, 
indeed, why should God introduce persecution, 
if He bids us retire from it? This is imputing 
inconsistency to His acts. If we want texts to 30 
justify our not fleeing, He says, "Whoso shall 



64 CHAEACTEB SKETCHES 

confess Me before men, I will confess him before 
My Father." " Blessed are they that suffer per- 
secution;" "He that shall persevere to the end, 
he shall be saved;" "Be not afraid of them that 

skill the body;" "Whosoever does not carry his 
cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple." 
How are these texts fulfilled when a man flees? 
Christ, who is our pattern, did not more than 
pray, "If it be possible, let this chalice pass:" 

10 we, too, should both stay and pray as He did. 
And it is expressly told us, that " We also ought 
to lay down our lives for the brethren." Again, it 
is said, "Perfect charity casteth out fear;" he 
who flees, fears; he who fears, "is not perfected 

15 in charity." The Greek proverb is sometimes 
urged, "He who flees, will fight another day;" 
yes, and he may flee another day, also. Again, 
if bishops, priests, and deacons flee, why must 
the laity stay? or must they flee also? "The 

20 good shepherd," on the contrary, "layeth down 
his life for his sheep"; whereas, the bad shepherd 
"seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, 
and fleeth." At no time, as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 
and Zechariah tell us, is the flock in greater dan- 

25 ger of being scattered than when it loses its shep- 
herd. Tertullian ends thus : " This doctrine, my 
brother, perhaps appears to you hard; nay, in- 
tolerable. But recollect that God has said, ' He 
that can take, let him take it;' that is, he who 

30 receives it not, let him depart. He who fears to 
suffer cannot belong to Him who has suffered. 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 65 

He who does not fear to suffer is perfect in. love, 
that is, of God. Many are called, few are chosen. 
Not he who would walk the broad way is sought 
out by God, but he who walks the narrow.'' 
Thus the ingenious and vehement Tertullian. 5 

III 

With these remarks for and against flight in 
persecution, we shall be prepared to listen to 
Augustine on the subject; I have said, it was 
brought under his notice by a brother bishop, 
with reference to the impending visitation of the 10 
barbarians. His answer happily is preserved to 
us, and extracts from it shall now be set before 
the reader. 

"To HIS Holy Brothers and Fellow-bishop Honor- 
ATUS, Augustine sends Health in the Lord 

"I thought the copy of my letter to our brother 
Quodvultdeus, which I sent to you, would have been 15 
sufficient, dear brother, without the task you put on me 
of counseling you on the proper course to pursue under 
our existing dangers. It was certainly a short letter; 
yet I included every question which it was necessary to 
ask and answer, when I said that no persons were hin-20 
dered from retiring to such fortified places as they were 
able and desirous to secure ; while, on the other hand, we 
might not break the bonds of our ministry, by which 
the love of Christ has engaged us not to desert the Church, 
where we are bound to serve. The following is what I 25 
laid down in the letter I refer to : 'It remains, then,' 
I say, ' that, though God' s people in the place where we 
are be ever so few, yet, if it does stay, we, whose minis- 



66 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

tration is necessary to its staying, must say to the Lord, 
Thou art our strong rock and place of defense.' 

" But you tell me that this view is not sufficient for 
you, from an apprehension lest we should be running 
5 counter to our Lord's command and example, to flee 
from city to city. Yet is it conceivable that He meant 
that our flocks, whom He bought with His own blood, 
should be deprived of that necessary ministration with- 
out which they cannot live? Is He a precedent for 

10 this, who was carried in flight into Egypt by His parents 
when but a child, before He had formed Churches which 
we can talk of His leaving? Or, when St. Paul was let 
down in a basket through a window, lest the enemy 
should seize him, and so escaped his hands, was the Church 

15 of that place bereft of its necessary ministration, seeing 
there were other brethren stationed there to fulfill what 
was necessary? Evidently it was their wish that he, 
who was the direct object of the persecutors' search, 
should preserve himself for the sake of the Church. 

20 Let, then, the servants of Christ, the ministers of His 
word and sacraments, do in such cases as He enjoined 
or permitted. Let such of them, by all means, flee from 
city to city, as are special objects of persecution; so 
that they who are not thus attacked desert not the 

25 Church, but give meat to those their fellow-servants, 
who they know cannot live without it. But in a case 
when all classes — I mean bishops, clergy, and people — 
are in some common danger, let not those who need the 
aid of others be deserted by those whom they need. Either 

30 let one and all remove into some fortified place, or, if 
any are obliged to remain, let them not be abandoned 
by those who have to supply thejr ecclesiastical necessity, 
so that they may survive in common, or suffer in common 
what their Father decrees they should undergo." 

35 Then he makes mention of the argument of a 
certain bishop; that "if our Lord has enjoined 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 67 

upon us flight, in persecutions which may ripen 
into martyrdom, much more is it necessary to 
flee from barren sufferings in a barbarian and 
hostile invasion," and he says, "this is true and 
reasonable, in the case of such as have no ecclesi- 5 
astical office to tie them"; but he continues: 

"Why should men make no question about obeying 
the precept of fleeing from city to city, and yet have 
no dread of ' the hirehng who seeth the wolf coming, and 
fleeth, because he careth not for the sheep'? Why do 10 
they not try to reconcile (as they assuredly can) these 
two incontrovertible declarations of our Lord, one of 
which suffers and commands flight, the other arraigns 
and condemns it? And what other mode is there of 
reconcihng them than that which I have above laid down? 15 
viz., that we, the ministers of Christ, who are under the 
pressure of persecution, are then at liberty to leave our 
posts, when no flock is left for us to serve; or again, 
when, though there be a flock, yet there are others to 
supply our necessary ministry, who have not the same 20 
reason for fleeing, — as in the case of St. Paul ; or, 
again, of the holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, 
who was especially sought after by the emperor Con- 
stantius, while the Catholic people, who remained to- 
gether in Alexandria, were in no measure deserted by the 25 
other ministers. But when the people remain, and the 
ministers flee, and the ministration is suspended, what 
is that but the guilty flight of hirelings, who care not for 
the sheep ? For then the w^olf will come, — not man, but 
the devfl, who is accustomed to persuade such believers 30 
to apostasy, who are bereft of the dafly ministration of 
the Lord's Body ; and by your, not knowledge, but igno- 
rance of duty, the weak brother will perish, for whom 
Christ died. 

" Let us only consider, when matters come to an 35 



68 CHABACTEB SKETCHES 

extremity of danger, and there is no longer any means 
of escape, how persons flock together to the Church, of 
both sexes, and all ages, begging for baptism, or recon- 
ciliation, or even for works of penance, and one and 
5 all of them for consolation, and the consecration and 
application of the sacraments. Now, if ministers are 
wanting, what ruin awaits those, who depart from this 
life unregenerate or unabsolved ! Consider the grief 
of their believing relatives, who will not have them as 

10 partakers with themselves in the rest of eternal life ; 
consider the anguish of the whole multitude, nay, the 
cursings of some of them, at the absence of ministration 
and ministers. 

" It may be said, however, that the ministers of God 

15 ought to avoid such imminent perils, in order to pre- 
serve themselves for the profit of the Church for more 
tranquil times. I grant it where others are present to 
supply the ecclesiastical ministry, as in the case of Athana- 
sius. How necessary it was to the Church, how bene- 

20ficial, that such a man should remain in the flesh, the 
Catholic faith bears witness, which was maintained 
against the Arians by his voice and his love. But when 
there is a common danger, and when there is rather 
reason to apprehend lest a man should be thought to 

25 flee, not from purpose of prudence, but from dread of 
dying, and when the example of flight does more harm 
than the service of living does good, it is by no means 
to be done. To be brief, holy David withdrew himself 
from the hazard of war, lest perchance he should ' quench 

30 the light of Israel,' at the instance of his people, not on 
his own motion. Otherwise, he would have occasioned 
many imitators of an inactivity which they had in that 
case ascribed, not to regard for the welfare of others, 
but to cowardice." 

35 Then he goes on to a further question, what is 
to be done in a case where all ministers are likely 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 69 

to perish, unless some of them take to flight? or 
when persecution is set on foot only with the view 
of reaching the ministers of the Church? This 
leads him to exclaim : 

" O, that there may be then a quarrel between God's 5 
ministers, who are to remain, and who to flee, lest the 
Church should be deserted, whether by all fleeing or all 
dying ! Surely there will ever be such a quarrel, where 
each party burns in its own charity, yet indulges the 
charity of the other. In such a difficulty, the lot seems 10 
the fairest decision, in default of others. God judges 
better than man in perplexities of this sort; whether it 
be His will to reward the holier among them with the 
crown of martydom, and to spare the weak, or again, 
to strengthen the latter to endure evil, removing those 15 
from life whom the Church of God can spare the better. 
Should it, however, seem inexpedient to cast lots, — 
a measure for which I cannot bring precedent, — at 
least, let no one's flight be the cause of the Church's 
losing those ministrations which, in such dangers, are 20 
so necessary and so imperative. Let no one make him- 
self an exception, on the plea of having some particular 
grace, which gives him a claim to life, and therefore to 
flight. 

" It is sometimes supposed that bishops and clergy, 25 
remaining at their posts in dangers of this kind, mislead 
their flocks into staying, by their example. But it is 
easy for us to remove this objection or imputation, by 
frankly telling them not to be misled by our remaining. 
' We are remaining for your sake,' we must say, 'lest you 30 
should fail to obtain such ministration, as we know to 
be necessary to your salvation in Christ. Make your 
escape, and you will then set us free.' The occasion for 
saying this is when there seems some real advantage in 
retiring to a safer position. Should all or some make 35 
answer, ' We are in His hands from whose anger no one 



70 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

can flee anywhere; whose mercy every one may find 
everywhere, though he stir not, whether some necessary 
tie detains him, or the uncertainty of safe escape deters 
him'; most undoubtedly such persons are not to be 
5 left destitute of Christian ministrations. 

" I have written these lines, dearest brother, in truth, 
as I think, and in sure charity, by way of reply, since you 
have consulted me; but not as dictating, if, perchance, 
you may find some better view to guide you. Hov/ever, 
10 better we cannot do in these perils than pray the Lord 
our God to have mercy upon us." — Ep. 228. 

IV 

The luminous judgment, the calm faith, and 
the single-minded devotion which this letter 
exhibits, were fully maintained in the conduct of 

15 the far-famed writer, in the events which fol- 
lowed. It was written on the first entrance of 
the Vandals into Africa, about two years before 
they laid siege to Hippo ; and during this inter- 
val of dreadful suspense and excitement, as well 

20 as of actual suffering, amid the desolation of the 
Church around him, with the prospect of his own 
personal trials, we find this unwearied teacher 
carrying on his works of love by pen, and word 
of mouth, — eagerly, as knowing his time was 

25 short, but tranquilly, as if it were a season of 
prosperity. . . . 

His life had been for many years one of great 
anxiety and discomfort, the life of one dissatisfied 
with himself, and despairing of finding the truth. 

30 Men of ordinary minds are not so circumstanced 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 71 

as to feel the misery of irreligion. That misery 
consists in the perverted and discordant action 
of the various faculties and functions of the soul, 
which have lost their legitimate governing power, 
and are unable to regain it, except at the hands 5 
of their Maker. Now the run of irreligious men 
do not suffer in any great degree from this dis- 
order, and are not miserable; they have neither 
great talents nor strong passions; they have not 
within them the materials of rebellion in such 10 
measure as to threaten their peace. They follow 
their own wishes, they yield to the bent of the 
moment, they act on inclination, not on principle, 
but their motive powers are neither strong nor 
various enough to be troublesome. Their minds 15 
are in no sense under rule ; but anarchy is not in 
their case a state of confusion, but of deadness; 
not unlike the internal condition as it is reported 
of eastern cities and provinces at present, in 
which, though the government is weak or null, 20 
the body politic goes on without any great em- 
barrassment or collision of its members one with 
another, by the force of inveterate habit. It is 
very different when the moral and intellectual 
principles are vigorous, active, and developed. 25 
Then, if the governing power be feeble, all the 
subordinates are in the position of rebels in arms ; 
and what the state of a mind is under such cir- 
cumstances, the analogy of a civil community will 
suggest to us. Then we have before us the 30 
melancholy spectacle of high aspirations without 



72 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

an aim, a hunger of the soul unsatisfied, and a 
never ending restlessness and inward warfare of 
its various faculties. Gifted minds, if not sub- 
mitted to the rightful authority of religion, be- 

5 come the most unhappy and the most mischievous. 
They need both an object to feed upon, and the 
power of self-mastery; and the love of their 
Maker, and nothing but it, supplies both the one 
and the other. We have seen in our own day, in 

10 the case of a popular poet, an impressive instance 
of a great genius throwing off the fear of God, 
seeking for happiness in the creature, roaming 
unsatisfied from one object to another, breaking 
his soul upon itself, and bitterly confessing and 

15 imparting his wretchedness to all around him. 
I have no wish at all to compare him to St, Augus- 
tine; indeed, if we may say it without presump- 
tion, the very different termination of their trial 
seems to indicate some great difference in their 

20 respective modes of encountering it. The one 
dies of premature decay, to all appearance, a har- 
dened infidel ; and if he is still to have a name, 
will live in the mouths of men by writings at once 
blasphemous and immoral : the other is a Saint 

25 and Doctor of the Church. Each makes con- 
fessions, the one to the saints, the other to the 
powers of evil. And does not the difference of 
the two discover itself in some measure, even to 
our eyes, in the very history of their wanderings 

30 and pinings ? At least, there is no appearance in 
St. Augustine's case of that dreadful haughtiness, 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 73 

sullenness, love of singularity, vanity, irritability, 
and misanthropy, which were too certainly the 
characteristics of our own countryman. Augus- 
tine was, as his early history shows, a man of af- 
fectionate and tender feelings, and open and ami- 5 
able temper; and, above all, he sought for some 
excellence external to his own mind, instead of 
concentrating all his contemplations on himself- 
But let us consider what his misery was; it 
was that of a mind imprisoned, solitary, and wild lo 
with spiritual thirst; and forced to betake itself 
to the strongest excitements, by way of relieving 
itself of the rush and violence of feelings, of which 
the knowledge of the Divine Perfections was the 
true and sole sustenance. He ran into excess, 15 
not from love of it, but from this fierce fever of 
mind. "I sought what I might love," ^ he says 
in his Confessions, " in love with loving, and safety 
I hated, and a way without snares. For within 
me was a famine of that inward food. Thyself, 20 
my God; yet throughout that famine I was not 
hungered, but was without any longing for incor- 
ruptible sustenance, not because filled therewith, 
but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For 
this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores ; it 25 
miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped 
by the touch of objects of sense." — iii. i. 

"O foolish man that I then was," he says elsewhere, 
" enduring impatiently the lot of man ! So I fretted, 

^ Most of these translations are from the Oxford edition 

of 1838. 



74 CUARACTEB SKETCHES 

sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor 
counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding 
soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose 
it I found not; not in calm groves, nor in games and 
5 music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings, 
nor in indulgence of the bed and the couch, nor, finally, in 
books or poetry found it repose. All things looked ghastly, 
yea, the very light. In groaning and tears alone found 
I a little refreshment. But when my soul was withdrawn 

10 from them, a huge load of misery weighed me down. 
To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have been raised, for Thee 
to lighten; I knew it, but neither could nor would; 
the more, since when I thought of Thee, Thou wast not 
to me any solid or substantial thing. For Thou wcrt not 

15 Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my God. 
If I offered to discharge my load thereon, that it might 
rest, it glided through the void, and came rushing down 
against me; and I had remained to myself a hapless 
spot, where I could neither be, nor be from thence. For 

20 whither should my heart flee from my heart? whither 
should I flee from myself? whither not follow myself? 
And yet I fled out of my country; for so should mine 
eyes look less for him, where they were not wont to see 
him." — iv. 12. 

25 He is speaking in this last sentence of a friend he 
had lost, whose death-bed was very remarkable, 
and whose dear familiar name he apparently has 
not courage to mention. " He had grown from a 
child with me," he says, " and we had been both 

30 schoolfellows and playfellows." Augustine had 
misled him into the heresy which he had adopted 
himself, and when he grew to have more and more 
sympathy in Augustine's pursuits, the latter united 
himself to him in a closer intimacy. Scarcely had 

35 he thus given him his hearty when God took him. 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 75 

" Thou tookcst him," he says, " out of this Ufe, when he 
had scarce completed one whole year of my friendship, 
sweet to me above all sweetness in that life of mine. 
A long while, sore sick of a fever, he lay senseless in the 
dews of death, and being given over, he was baptized 5 
unwitting; I, meanwhile little regarding, or presuming 
that his soul would retain rather what it had received 
of me than what was wrought on his unconscious body." 

The Manichees, it should be observed, rejected 
baptism. He proceeds : lo 

"But it proved far otherwise; for he was refreshed 
and restored. Forthwith, as soon as I could speak with 
him (and I could as soon as he was able, for I never left 
him, and we hung but too much upon each other), I 
essayed to jest with him, as though he would jest with 15 
me at that baptism, which he had received, when ut- 
terly absent in mind and feeling, but had now understood 
that he had received. But he shrunk from me, as from 
an enemy; and with a wonderful and sudden freedom 
bade me, if I would continue his friend, forbear such 20 
language to him, I, all astonished and amazed, sup- 
pressed all my emotions till he should grow well, and his 
health were strong enough for me to deal with him as I 
would. But he was taken away from my madness, that 
with Thee he might be preserved for my comfort : a few 25 
days after, in my absence, he was attacked again by 
fever, and so departed." — iv. 8. 



From distress of mind Augustine left his native 
place, Thagaste, and came to Carthage, where he 
became a teacher in rhetoric. Here he fell in 30 
with Faustus, an eminent Manichean bishop and 



76 CHARACTEB SKETCHES 

disputant, in whom, however, he was disap- 
pointed; and the disappointment abated his 
attachment to his sect, and disposed him to look 
for truth elsewhere. Disgusted with the license 

5 which prevailed among the students at Carthage, 
he determined to proceed to Rome, and disre- 
garding and eluding the entreaties of his mother, 
Monica, who dreaded his removal from his own 
country, he went thither. At Rome he resumed 

10 his professions; but inconveniences as great, 
though of another kind, encountered him in that 
city; and upon the people of Milan sending for a 
rhetoric reader, he made application for the ap- 
pointment, and obtained it. To Milan then he 

15 came, the city of St. Ambrose, in the year of our 
Lord 385. 

Ambrose, though weak in voice, had the repu- 
tation of eloquence; and Augustine, who seems 
to have gone with introductions to him, and was 

20 won by his kindness of manner, attended his ser- 
mons with curiosity and interest. "I listened,'^ 
he says, " not in the frame of mind which became 
me, but in order to see whether his eloquence 
answered, what was reported of it : I hung on his 

25 words attentively, but of the matter I was but an 
unconcerned and contemptuous hearer." — v. 23. 
His impression of his style of preaching is worth 
noticing : " I was delighted with the sweetness 
of his discourse, more full of knowledge, yet in 

30 manner less pleasurable and soothing, than that 
of Faustus." Augustine was insensibly moved: 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 77 

he determined on leaving the Manichees, and re- 
turning to the state of a catechumen in the 
CathoUc Church, into which he had been admitted 
by his parents. He began to eye and muse upon 
the great bishop of Milan more and more, and tried 5 
in vain to penetrate his secret heart, and to ascer- 
tain the thoughts and feelings which swayed him. 
He felt he did not understand him. If the 
respect and intimacy of the great could make 
a man happy, these advantages he perceived 10 
Ambrose to possess ; yet he was not satisfied that 
he was a happy man. His celibacy seemed a 
drawback: what constituted his hidden life? or 
was he cold at heart? or was he of a famished 
and restless spirit ? He felt his own malady, and 15 
longed to ask him some questions about it. But 
Ambrose could not easily be spoken with. Though 
accessible to all, yet that very circumstance 
made it difficult for an individual, especially one 
who was not of his flock, to get a private inter- 20 
view with him. When he was not taken up with 
the Christian people who surrounded him, he 
was either at his meals or engaged in private 
reading. Augustine used to enter, as all persons 
might, without being announced ; but after stay- 25 
ing awhile, afraid of interrupting him, he de- 
parted again. However, he heard his expositions 
of Scripture every Sunday, and gradually made 
progress. 

He was now in his thirtieth year, and since he 30 
was a youth of eighteen had been searching after 



78 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

truth ; yet he was still " m the same mire, greedy of 
things present/' but finding nothing stable, 

"To-morrow," he said to himself, "I shall find it; it 
will appear manifestly, and I shall grasp it: lo, Faustus 
5 the Manichee will come and clear everything ! O you 
great men, ye academics, is it true, then, that no cer- 
tainty can be attained for the ordering of life? Nay, 
let us search diligently, and despair not. Lo, things in 
the ecclesiastical books are not absurd to us now, which 

10 sometimes seemed absurd, and may be otherwise taken 
and in a good sense. I will take my stand where, as a 
child, my parents placed me, until the clear truth be 
found out. But where shall it be sought, or when? 
Ambrose has no leisure; we have no leisure to read; 

15 where shall we find even the books ? where, or when, 
procure them? Let set times be appointed, and cer- 
tain hours be ordered for the health of our soul. Great 
hope has dawned; the Catholic faith teaches not what 
we thought; and do we doubt to knock, that the rest 

20 may be opened ? The forenoons, indeed, our scholars 
take up; what do we during the rest of our time? why 
not this? But if so, when pay we court to our great 
friend, whose favors we need? when compose what we 
may sell to scholars ? when refresh ourselves, unbending 

25 our minds from this intenseness of care ? 

"Perish everything: dismiss we these empty vani- 
ties ; and betake ourselves to the one search for truth ! 
Life is a poor thing, death is uncertain; if it surprises 
us, in what state shall we depart hence ? and when shall 

30 we learn what here we have neglected ? and shall we not 
rather suffer the punishment of this negligence? What 
if death itself cut off and end all care and feeling? 
Then must this be ascertained. But God forbid this ! 
It is no vain and empty thing, that the excellent dignity 

35 of the Christian faith has overspread the whole world. 
Never would such and so great things be wrought for 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 79 

us by God, if with the body the soul also came to an 
end. Wherefore delay then to abandon worldly hopes, 
and give ourselves wholly to seek after God and the 
blessed life ? . . . 

Finding Ambrose, though kind and accessible, 5 
yet reserved, he went to an aged man named 
Simplician, who, as some say, baptized St. 
Ambrose, and eventually succeeded him in his 
see. He opened his mind to him, and happen- 
ing in the course of his communications to men-io 
tion Victorinus's translation of some Platonic 
works, Simplician asked him if he knew that per- 
son's history. It seems he was a professor of 
rhetoric at Rome, was well versed in literature and 
philosophy, had been tutor to many of the sena- 15 
tors, and had received the high honor of a statue 
in the Forum. Up to his old age he had pro- 
fessed, and defended with his eloquence, the old 
pagan worship. He was led to read the Holy 
Scriptures, and was brought, in consequence, to 20 
a belief in their divinity. For a while he did not 
feel the necessity of changing his profession; he 
looked upon Christianity as a philosophy, he 
embraced it as such, but did not propose to join 
what he considered the Christian sect, or, as 25 
Christians would call it, the Catholic Church. 
He let Simplician into his secret; but whenever 
the latter pressed him to take the step, he was 
accustomed to ask, " whether walls made a 
Christian." However, such a state could not 30 
continue with a man of earnest mind : the leaven 



80 CUABACTEB SKETCHES 

worked; at length he unexpectedly called upon 
Simplician to lead him to church. He was ad- 
mitted a catechumen, and in due time baptized, 
"Rome wondering, the Church rejoicing." It 

5 was customary at Rome for the candidates for 
baptism to profess their faith from a raised place 
in the church, in a set form of words. An offer 
was made to Victorinus, which was not unusual 
in the case of bashful and timid persons, to make 

10 his profession in private. But he preferred to 
make it in the ordinary way. "I was public 
enough,'' he made answer, "in my profession of 
rhetoric, and ought not to be frightened when 
professing salvation." He continued the school 

15 which he had before he became a Christian, till 
the edict of Julian forced him to close it. This 
story went to Augustine's heart, but it did not 
melt it. There was still the struggle of two wills, 
the high aspiration and the habitual inertness. 

20 His conversion took place in the summer of 386. 



He gives an account of the termination of the 
conflict he underwent : 

"At length burst forth a mighty storm, bringing 
a mighty flood of tears; and to indulge it to the full 

25 even unto cries, in solitude, I rose up from Alypius, . . . 
who perceived from my choked voice how it was with 
me. He remained where we had been sitting, in deep 
astonishment. I threw myself down under a fig tree, I 
know not how, and allowing my tears full vent, offered 

30 up to Thee the acceptable sacrifice of my streaming eyes. 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 81 

And I cried out to this effect: 'And Thou, O Lord, 
how long, how long. Lord, wilt Thou be angry ? For- 
ever? Remember not our old sins !' for I felt that they 
were my tyrants. I cried out, piteously, 'How long? 
how long ? to-morrow and to-morrow ? why not now ? 5 
why not in this very hour put an end to this my vileness ? ' 
While I thus spoke, with tears, in the bitter contrition 
of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice, as if from a house 
near me, of a boy or girl chanting forth again and again, 
'take up and read, take up and read!* Changing 10 
countenance at these words, I began intently to think 
whether boys used them in any game, but could not rec- 
ollect that I had ever heard them. I left weeping and 
rose up, considering it a divine intimation to open the 
Scriptures and read what first presented itself. I had 15 
heard that Antony had come in during the reading of the 
Gospel, and had taken to himself the admonition, 'Go, 
sell all that thou hast,' etc., and had turned to Thee at 
once, in consequence of that oracle. I had left St. 
Paul's volume where Alypius was sitting, when I rose 20 
thence. I returned thither, seized it, opened, and read 
in silence the following passage, which first met my eyes, 
'Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and 
impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in 25 
its concupiscences' I had neither desire nor need to 
read farther. As I finished the sentence, as though the 
light of peace had been poured into my heart, all the 
shadows of doubt dispersed. Thus hast Thou converted 
me to Thee, so as no longer to seek either for wife or 30 
other hope of this world, standing fast in that rule of 
faith in which Thou so many years before hadst revealed 
me to my mother." — viii. 26-30. 

The last words of this extract relate to a dream 
which his mother had had some years before, 35 
concerning his conversion. On his first turning 



82 CHAEACTER SKETCHES 

Manichee, abhorring his opinions, she would not 
for a while even eat with him, when she had this 
dream, in which she had an intimation that where 
she stood, there Augustine should one day be 
5 with her. At another time she derived great 
comfort from the casual words of a bishop, who, 
when importuned by her to converse with her 
son, said at length with some impatience, " Go 
thy ways, and God bless thee, for it is not possible 

10 that the son of these tears should perish!'' It 
would be out of place, and is perhaps unnecessary, 
to enter here into the affecting and well-known 
history of her tender anxieties and persevering 
prayers for Augustine. Suffice it to say, she saw 

15 the accomplishment of them ; she lived till Augus- 
tine became a Catholic; and she died in her way 
back to Africa with him. Her last words were, 
"Lay this body anywhere; let not the care of it 
in any way distress you; this only I ask, that 

20 wherever you be, you remember me at the Altar 
of the Lord." 

"May she," says her son, in dutiful remembrance of 
her words, ''rest in peace with her husband, before and 
after whom she never had any; whom she obeyed, with 

25 patience bringing forth fruit unto Thee, that she might 
win him also unto Thee. And inspire, O Lord my God, 
inspire Thy servants, my brethren, — Thy sons, my 
masters, — whom, in heart, voice, and writing I serve, 
that so many as read these confessions, may at Thy altar 

30 remember Monica, Thy handmaid, with Patricius, her 
sometime husband, from whom Thou broughtest me into 
this life; how, I know not. May they with pious affec- 



AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 83 

tion remember those who were my parents in this 
transitory Hght, — my brethren under Thee, our Father, 
in our Catholic Mother, — my fellow-citizens in the 
eternal Jerusalem, after which Thy pilgrim people sigh 
from their going forth unto their return: that so, her 
last request of me may in the prayers of many receive 
a fulfillment, through my confessions, more abundant 
than through my prayers." — ix. 37. 



CHRYSOSTOM 

Introductory 

I CONFESS to a delight in reading the Hves, and 
dwelling on the characters and actions, of the 
Saints of the first ages, such as I receive from none 
besides them; and for this reason, because we 

5 know so much more about them than about most 
of the Saints who come after them. People are 
variously constituted; what influences one does 
not influence another. There are persons of 
warm imaginations, who can easily picture to 

10 themselves what they never saw. They can at 
will see Angels and Saints hovering over them 
when they are in church; they see their linea- 
ments, their features, their motions, their ges- 
tures, their smile or their grief. They can go 

15 home and draw what they have seen, from the 
vivid memory of what, while it lasted, was so 
transporting. I am not one of such ; I am touched 
by my five senses, by what my eyes behold and 
my ears hear. I am touched by what I read 

20 about, not by what I myself create. As faith 
need not lead to practice, so in me mere imagi- 
nation does not lead to devotion. I gain more 
from the life of our Lord in the Gospels than from 
a treatise de Deo, I gain more from three verses 
84 



CHBYSOSTOM 85 

of St. John than from the three points of a medi- 
tation. I hke a Spanish crucifix of painted wood 
more than one from Italy, which is made of gold. 
I am more touched by the Seven Dolors than by 
the Immaculate Conception; I am more devout 5 
to St. Gabriel than to one of Isaiah's seraphim. 
I love St. Paul more than one of those first Carme- 
lites, his contemporaries, whose names and acts 
no one ever heard of ; I feel affectionately towards 
the Alexandrian Dionysius, I do homage to St. lo 
George. I do not say that my way is better than 
another's; but it is my way, and an allowable 
way. And it is the reason why I am so specially 
attached to the Saints of the third and fourth 
century, because we know so much about them. 15 
This is why I feel a devout affection for St. 
Chrysostom. He and the rest of them have 
written autobiography on a large scale; they 
have given us their own histories, their thoughts, 
words, and actions, in a number of goodly folios, 20 
productions which are in themselves some of their 
meritorious works. . . . 

The Ancient Saints have left behind them just 
that kind of literature which more than any other 
represents the abundance of the heart, which 25 
more than any other approaches to conversation; 
I mean correspondence. Why is it that we feel 
an interest in Cicero which we cannot feel in 
Demosthenes or Plato? Plato is the very type 
of soaring philosophy, and Demosthenes of forci-30 
ble eloquence; Cicero is something more than 



86 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

an orator and a sage ; he is not a mere ideality, he 
is a man and a brother; he is one of ourselves. 
We do not merely believe it, or infer it, but we 
have the enduring and living evidence of it — 
5 how? In his letters. He can be studied, criti- 
cised if you will; but still dwelt upon and sym- 
pathized with also. Now the case of the Ancient 
Saints is parallel to that of Cicero. We have their 
letters in a marvelous profusion. We have 
10 above 400 letters of St. Basil's; above 200 of 
St. Augustine's. St. Chrysostom has left us 
about 240; St. Gregory Nazianzen the same 
number; Pope St. Gregory as many as 840. . . . 
A Saint's writings are to me his real "Life"; 
15 and what is called his "Life" is not the outline 
of an individual, but either of the auto-saint or 
of a myth. Perhaps I shall be asked what I 
mean by " Life." I mean a narrative which im- 
presses the reader with the idea of moral unity, 
20 identity, growth, continuity, personality. When 
a Saint converses with me, I am conscious of the 
presence of one active principle of thought, one 
individual character, flowing on and into the 
various matters which he discusses, and the dif- 
25ferent transactions in which he mixes. It is 
what no memorials can reach, however skillfully 
elaborated, however free from effort or study, 
however conscientiously faithful, however guar- 
anteed by the veracity of the writers. Why can- 
so not art rival the lily or the rose? Because the 
colors of the flower are developed and blended 



CHRYSOSTOM 87 

by the force of an inward life ; while on the other 
hand, the lights and shades of the painter are 
diligently laid on from without. A magnifying 
glass will show the difference. Nor will it im- 
prove matters, though not one only, but a dozen 5 
good artists successively take part in the picture; 
even if the outline is unbroken, the coloring is 
muddy. Commonly, what is called " the Life," 
is little more than a collection of anecdotes brought 
together from a number of independent quarters ; lo 
anecdotes striking, indeed, and edifying, but valu- 
able in themselves rather than valuable as parts 
of a biography; valuable whoever was the sub- 
ject of them, not valuable as illustrating a par- 
ticular Saint. It would be difficult to mistake 15 
for each other a paragraph of St. Ambrose, or of 
St. Jerome, or of St. Augustine; it would be very 
easy to mistake a chapter in the life of one holy 
missionary or nun for a chapter in the life of 
another. 20 

An almsgiving here, an instance of meekness 
there, a severity of penance, a round of religious 
duties, — all these things humble me, instruct 
me, improve me; I cannot desire anything bet- 
ter of their kind; but they do not necessarily 25 
coalesce into the image of a person. From such 
works I do but learn to pay devotion to an 
abstract and typical perfection under a certain 
particular name; I do not know more of the real 
Saint who bore it than before. Saints, as other 30 
men, differ from each other in this, that the 



88 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

multitude of qualities which they have in com- 
mon are differently combined in each of them. 
This forms one great part of their personality. 
One Saint is remarkable for fortitude; not that 

5 he has not other heroic virtues by concomitance, 
as it may be called, but by virtue of that one gift 
in particular he has won his crown. Another is 
remarkable for patient hope, another for renun- 
ciation of the world. Such a particular virtue 

10 may be said to give form to all the rest which are 
grouped round it, and are molded and modified 
by means of it. Thus it is that often what is 
right in one would be wrong in another; and, in 
fact, the very same action is allowed or chosen 

15 by one, and shunned by another, as being con- 
sistent or inconsistent with their respective char- 
acters, — pretty much as in the combination of 
colors, each separate tint takes a shade from 
the rest, and is good or bad from its company. 

20 The whole gives a meaning to the parts; but it 
is difficult to rise from the parts to the whole. 
When I read St. Augustine or St, Basil, I hold 
converse with a beautiful grace-illumined soul, 
looking out into this world of sense, and leavening 

25 it with itself; when I read a professed life of him, 
I am wandering in a labyrinth of which I cannot 
find the center and heart, and am but conducted 
out of doors again when I do my best to penetrate 
within. 

30 This seems to me, to tell the truth, a sort of 
pantheistic treatment of the Saints. I ask some- 



CHRYSOSTOM 89 

thing more than to stumble upon the disjecta 
membra of what ought to be a Uving whole. I 
take but a secondary interest in books which 
chop up a Saint into chapters of faith, hope, 
charity, and the cardinal virtues. They are too 5 
scientific to be devotional. They have their 
great utility, but it is not the utility which they 
profess. They do not manifest a Saint, they 
mince him into spiritual lessons. They are 
rightly called spiritual reading, that is just what lo 
they are, and they cannot possibly be anything 
better; but they are not anything else. They 
contain a series of points of meditation on par- 
ticular virtues, made easier because those points 
are put under the patronage and the invocation 15 
of a Saint. With a view to learning real devo- 
tion to him, I prefer (speaking for myself) to have 
any one action or event of his life drawn out 
minutely, with his own comments upon it, than 
a score of virtues, or of acts of one virtue, strung 20 
together in as many sentences. Now, in the an- 
cient writings I have spoken of, certain transac- 
tions are thoroughly worked out. We know all 
that happened to a Saint on such or such an occa- 
sion, all that was done by him. We have a view 25 
of his character, his tastes, his natural infirmities, 
his struggles and victories over them, which in 
no other way can be attained. And therefore it 
is that, without quarreling with the devotion of 
others, I give the preference to my own. ... 30 
Here another great subject opens upon us, 



90 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

when I ought to be bringing these remarks to 
an end; I mean the endemic perennial fidget 
which possesses us about giving scandal; facts 
are omitted in great histories, or glosses are put 
5 upon memorable acts, because they are thought 
not edifying, whereas of all scandals such omis- 
sions, such glosses, are the greatest. But I am 
getting far more argumentative than I thought 
to be when I began; so I lay my pen down, and 
10 retire into myself. 

I 

John of Antioch, from his sanctity and his 
eloquence called Chrysostom, was approaching 
sixty years of age, when he had to deliver himself 
up to the imperial officers, and to leave Constan- 

15 tinople for a distant exile. He had been the great 
preacher of the day now for nearly twenty years; 
first at Antioch, then in the metropolis of the 
East; and his gift of speech, as in the instance of 
the two great classical orators before him, was to 

20 be his ruin. He had made an Empress his enemy, 
more powerful than Antipater, — as passionate, 
if not so vindictive, as Fulvia. Nor was this all; 
a zealous Christian preacher offends not individ- 
uals merely, but classes of men, and much more 

25 so when he is pastor and ruler too, and has to 
punish as well as to denounce. Eudoxia, the 
Empress, might be taken off suddenly, — as 
indeed she was taken off a few weeks after the 
Saint arrived at the place of exile, which she per- 



CHBYSOSTOM 91 

sonally, in spite of his entreaties, had marked out 
for him ; but her death did but serve to increase 
the violence of the persecution directed against 
him. She had done her part in it, perhaps she 
might have even changed her mind in his favor; 5 
probably the agitation of a bad conscience was, 
in her critical condition, the cause of her death. 
She was taken out of the way ; but her partisans, 
who had made use of her, went on vigorously 
with the evil work which she had begun. When 10 
Cucusus would not kill him, they sent him on his 
travels anew, across a far wilder country than he 
had already traversed, to a remote town on the 
eastern coast of the Euxine; and he sank under 
this fresh trial. 13 

The Euxine ! that strange mysterious sea, 
which typifies the abyss of outer darkness, as 
the blue Mediterranean basks under the smile of 
heaven in the center of civilization and religion. 
The awful, yet splendid drama of man's history 20 
has mainly been carried on upon the Mediter- 
ranean shores ; while the Black Sea has ever been 
on the very outskirts of the habitable world, 
and the scene of wild unnatural portents ; with 
legends of Prometheus on the savage Caucasus, 25 
of Medea gathering witch herbs in the moist 
meadows of the Phasis, and of Iphigenia sacri- 
ficing the shipwrecked stranger in Taurica; and 
then again, with the more historical, yet not more 
grateful visions of barbarous tribes, Goths, Huns, 30 
Scythians, Tartars, flitting over the steppes and 



92 CHARACTEB SKETCHES 

wastes which encircle its inhospitable waters. 
To be driven from the bright cities and sunny 
clime of Italy or Greece to such a region, was 
worse than death; and the luxurious Roman 

5 actually preferred death to exile. The suicide 
of Gallus, under this dread doom, is well known; 
Ovid, too cowardly to be desperate, drained out 
the dregs of a vicious life on the cold marshes 
between the Danube and the sea. I need scarcely 

10 allude to the heroic Popes who patiently lived on 
in the Crimea, till a martyrdom, in which they 
had not part but the suffering, released them. 

But banishment was an immense evil in itself. 
Cicero, even though he had liberty of person, the 

15 choice of a home, and the prospect of a return, 
roamed disconsolate through the cities of Greece, 
because he was debarred access to the senate- 
house and forum. Chrysostom had his own 
rostra, his own curia; it was the Holy Temple, 

20 where his eloquence gained for him victories not 
less real, and more momentous, than the detec- 
tion and overthrow of Catiline. Great as was 
his gift of oratory, it was not by the fertility of 
his imagination, or the splendor of his diction 

25 that he gained the surname of " Mouth of Gold.'' 
We shall be very wrong if we suppose that fine 
expressions, or rounded periods, or figures of 

/ speech, were the credentials by which he claimed 
to be the first doctor of the East. His oratorical 

30 power was but the instrument by which he 
readily, gracefully, adequately expressed — ex- 



CHRYSOSTOM 93 

pressed without effort and with feUcity — the 
keen feelings, the Uving ideas, the earnest prac- 
tical lessons which he had to communicate to his 
hearers. He spoke, because his heart, his head, 
were brimful of things to speak about. His elo- 5 
cution corresponded to that strength and flexi- 
bility of limb, that quickness of eye, hand, and 
foot, by which a man excels in manly games or 
in mechanical skill. It would be a great mistake, 
in speaking of it, to ask whether it was Attic orio 
Asiatic, terse or flowing, when its distinctive 
praise was that it was natural. His unrivaled 
charm, as that of every really eloquent man, lies 
in his singleness of purpose, his fixed grasp of his 
aim, his noble earnestness. 15 

A bright, cheerful, gentle soul; a sensitive 
heart, a temperament open to emotion and im- 
pulse; and all this elevated, refined, transformed 
by the touch of heaven, — such was St. John 
Chrysostom; winning followers, riveting affec-20 
tions, by his sweetness, frankness, and neglect 
of self. In his labors, in his preaching, he 
thought of others only. " I am always in admi- 
ration of that thrice-blessed man," says an able 
critic,^ "because he ever in all his writings puts 25 
before him as his object, to be useful to his 
hearers; and as to all other matters, he either 
simply put them aside, or took the least possible 
notice of them. Nay, as to his seeming ignorant 
of some of the thoughts of Scripture, or careless of 30 
^ Photius, p. 387. 



94 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

entering into its depths, and similar defects, all 
this he utterly disregarded in comparison of the 
profit of his hearers." 

There was as little affectation of sanctity in his 

5 dress or living as there was effort in his eloquence. 
In his youth he had been one of the most austere 
of men; at the age of twenty-one, renouncing 
bright prospects of the world, he had devoted 
himself to prayer and study of the Scriptures. 

10 He had retired to the mountains near Antioch, 
his native place, and had lived among the monks. 
This had been his home for six years, and he had 
chosen it in order to subdue the daintiness of his 
natural appetite. " Lately," he wrote to a friend 

15 at the time, — " lately, when I had made up my 
mind to leave the city and betake myself to the 
tabernacle of the monks, I was forever inquir- 
ing and busying myself how I was to get a sup- 
ply of provisions; whether it would be possible 

20 to procure fresh bread for my eating, whether 
I should be ordered to use the same oil for my 
lamp and for my food, to undergo the hardship 
of peas and beans, or of severe toil, such as dig- 
ging, carrying wood or water, and the like; in 

25 a word, I made much account of bodily comfort." ^ 
Such was the nervous anxiety and fidget of mind 
with which he had begun: but this rough disci- 
pline soon effected its object, and at length, even 
by preference, he took upon him mortifications 

30 which at first were a trouble to him. For the 
^ Ad Demetrium, i. 6. 



CIIBYSOSTOM 95 

last two years of his monastic exercise, he Hved 
by himself in a cave ; he slept, when he did sleep, 
without lying down; he exposed himself to the 
extremities of cold. At length he found he was 
passing the bounds of discretion, nature would 5 
bear no more; he fell ill, and returned to the 
city. 

A course of ascetic practice such as this would 
leave its spiritual effects upon him for life. It 
sank deep into him, though the surface might 10 
not show it. His duty at Constantinople was to 
mix with the world; and he lived as others, 
except as regards such restraints as his sacred 
office and archiepiscopal station demanded of 
him. He wore shoes, and an under garment; 15 
but his stomach was ever delicate, and at meals 
he was obliged to have his own dish, such as it 
was, to himself. However, he mixed freely with 
all ranks of men; and he made friends, affection- 
ate friends, of young and old, men and women, 20 
rich and poor, by condescending to all of every 
degree. How he was loved at Antioch, is shown 
by the expedient used to transfer him thence to 
Constantinople. Asterius, count of the East, had 
orders to send for him, and ask his company to a 25 
church without the city. Having got him into 
his carriage, he drove off with him to the first 
station on the highroad to Constantinople, where 
imperial officers were in readiness to convey him 
thither. Thus he was brought upon the scene of 30 
those trials which have given him a name in his- 



96 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

tory, and a place in the catalogue of the Saints. 
At the imperial city he was as much followed, if 
not as popular, as at Antioch. "The people 
flocked to him,'' says Sozomen, "as often as he 
5 preached; some of them to hear what would 
profit them, others to make trial of him. He 
carried them away, one and all, and persuaded 
them to think as he did about the Divine Nature. 
They hung upon his words, and could not have 

10 enough of them; so that, when they thrust and 
jammed themselves together in an alarming way, 
every one making an effort to get nearer to him, 
and to hear him more perfectly, he took his seat 
in the midst of them, and taught from the pulpit 

15 of the Reader." ^ He was, indeed, a man to make 
both friends and enemies; to inspire affection, 
and to kindle resentment; but his friends loved 
him with a love "stronger" than "death," and 
more burning than "hell"; and it was well to be 

20 so hated, if he was so beloved. 

Here he differs, as far as I can judge, from his 
brother saints and doctors of the Greek Church, 
St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen. They were 
scholars, shy perhaps and reserved; and though 

25 they had not given up the secular state, they were 
essentially monks. There is no evidence, that I 
remember, to show that they attached men to 
their persons. They, as well as John, had a 
multitude of enemies; and were regarded, the 

30 one with dislike, the other perhaps with con- 

^ Hist. viii. 5. 



CHEYSOSTOM 97 

tempt; but they had not, on the other hand, 
warm, eager, sympathetic, indignant, agonized 
friends. There is another characteristic in Chrys- 
ostom, which perhaps gained for him this great 
blessing. He had, as it would seem, a vigor^ 5 
elasticity, and, what may be called, sunniness of 
mind, all his own. He was ever sanguine, sel- 
dom sad. Basil had a life-long malady, involving 
continual gnawing pain and a weight of physical 
dejection. He bore his burden well and grace- lo 
fully, like the great Saint he was, as Job bore his ; 
but it was a burden like Job's. He was a calm, mild, 
grave, autumnal day; St. John Chrysostom was 
a day in springtime, bright and rainy, and glitter- 
ing through its rain. Gregory was the full sum- 15 
mer, with a long spell of pleasant stillness, its 
monotony relieved by thunder and lightning. 
And St. Athanasius figures to us the stern per- 
secuting winter, with its wild winds, its dreary 
wastes, its sleep of the great mother, and the 20 
bright stars shining overhead. He and Chrysos- 
tom have no points in common ; but Gregory was 
a dethroned Archbishop of Constantinople, like 
Chrysostom, and, again, dethroned by his breth- 
ren the Bishops. Like Basil, too, Chrysostom was 25 
bowed with infirmities of body ; he was often ill ; 
he was thin and wizened; cold was a misery to 
him; heat affected his head; he scarcely dare 
touch wine; he was obliged to use the bath; 
obliged to take exercise, or rather to be continu-30 
ally on the move. Whether from a nervous or 



98 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

febrile complexion, he was warm in temper; or 
at least, at certain times, his emotion struggled 
hard with his reason. But he had that noble 
spirit which complains as little as possible; which 
5 makes the best of things; which soon recovers 
its equanimity, and hopes on in circumstances 
when others sink down in despair. . . . 

II 

Whence is this devotion to St. John Chrysos- 
tom, which leads me to dwell upon the thought of 

10 him, and makes me kindle at his name, when so 
many other great Saints, as the year brings round 
their festivals, command indeed my veneration, 
but exert no personal claim upon my heart? 
Many holy men have died in exile, many holy 

15 men have been successful preachers; and what 
more can we write upon St. Chrysostom's monu- 
ment than this, that he was eloquent and that he 
suffered persecution? He is not an Athanasius, 
expounding a sacred dogma with a luminousness 

20 which is almost an inspiration; nor is he Athana- 
sius, again, in his romantic life-long adventures, 
in his sublime solitariness, in his ascendency over 
all classes of men, in his series of triumphs over 
material force and civil tyranny. Nor, except 

25 by the contrast, does he remind us of that Am- 
brose who kept his ground obstinately in an 
imperial city, and fortified himself against the 
heresy of a court by the living rampart of a 



CHRYS0ST03I 99 

devoted population. Nor is he Gregory or Basil, 
rich in the literature and philosophy of Greece, 
and embellishing the Church with the spoils of 
heathenism. Again, he is not an Augustine, de- 
voting long years to one masterpiece of thought, 5 
and laying, in successive controversies, the founda- 
tions of theology. Nor is he a Jerome, so dead to 
the world that he can imitate the point and wit 
of its writers without danger to himself or scan- 
dal to his brethren. He has not trampled upon lo 
heresy, nor smitten emperors, nor beautified the 
house or the service of God, nor knit together the 
portions of Christendom, nor founded a religious 
order, nor built up the framework of doctrine, nor 
expounded the science of the Saints; yet I lovei5 
him, as I love David or St. Paul. 

How am I to account for it? It has not hap- 
pened to me, as it might happen to many a man, 
that I have devoted time and toil to the study of 
his writings or of his history, and cry up that 20 
upon which I have made an outlay, or love what 
has become familiar to me. Cases may occur 
when our admiration for an author is only ad- 
miration of our own comments on him, and when 
our love of an old acquaintance is only our love 25 
of old times. For me, I have not written the 
life of Chrysostom, nor translated his works, nor 
studied Scripture in his exposition, nor forged 
weapons of controversy out of his sayings or his 
doings. Nor is his eloquence of a kind to carry 30 
any one away who has ever so little knowledge 



100 CHABACTEB SKETCHES 

of the oratory of Greece and Rome. It is not 
force of words, nor cogency of argument, nor 
harmony of composition, nor depth or richness of 
thought, which constitute his power, — whence, 
5 then, has he this influence, so mysterious, yet so 
strong ? 

I consider St. Chrysostom's charm to he in his 
intimate sympathy and compassionateness for 
the whole world, not only in its strength, but in 

10 its weakness; in the lively regard with which he 
views everything that comes before him, taken 
in the concrete, whether as made after its own 
kind or as gifted with a nature higher than its 
own. Not that any religious man — above all, 

15 not that any Saint — could possibly contrive to 
abstract the love of the work from the love of 
its Maker, or could feel a tenderness for earth 
which did not spring from devotion to heaven; 
or as if he would not love everything just in that 

20 degree in which the Creator loves it, and accord- 
ing to the measure of gifts which the Creator 
has bestowed upon it, and preeminently for the 
Creator's sake. But this is the characteristic 
of all Saints; and I am speaking, not of what St. 

25 Chrysostom had in common with others, but what 
he had special to himself; and this specialty, I 
conceive, is the interest which he takes in all 
things, not so far as God has made them alike, 
but as He has made them different from each 

30 other. I speak of the discriminating affectionate- 
ness with which he accepts every one for what is 



CHRYSOSTOM 101 

personal in him and unlike others. I speak of his 
versatile recognition of men, one by one, for the 
sake of that portion of good, be it more or less, 
of a lower order or a higher, which has severally 
been lodged in them; his eager contemplation of 5 
the many things they do, effect, or produce, of 
all their great works, as nations or as states; 
nay, even as they are corrupted or disguised by 
evil, so far as that evil may in imagination be 
disjoined from their proper nature, or may be 10 
regarded as a mere material disorder apart from 
its formal character of guilt. I speak of the 
kindly spirit and the genial temper with which 
he looks round at all things which this wonder- 
ful world contains; of the graphic fidelity with 15 
which he notes them down upon the tablets of 
his mind, and of the promptitude and propriety 
with which he calls them up as arguments or 
illustrations in the course of his teaching as the 
occasion requires. Possessed though he be by 20 
the fire of Divine charity, he has not lost one 
fiber, he does not miss one vibration, of the com- 
plicated whole of human sentiment and affection; 
like the miraculous bush in the desert, which, for 
all the flame that wrapt it round, was not thereby 25 
consumed. 

Such, in a transcendent perfection, was the 
gaze, as we may reverently suppose, with which 
the loving Father of all surveyed in eternity that 
universe even in its minutest details which He 30 
had decreed to create; such the loving pity with 



102 CHABACTER SKETCHES 

which He spoke the word when the due moment 
came, and began to mold the finite, as He cre- 
ated it, in His infinite hands ; such the watchful 
solicitude with which he now keeps His cata- 

slogue of the innumerable birds of heaven, and 
counts day by day the very hairs of our head and 
the alternations of our breathing. Such, much 
more, is the awful contemplation with which He 
encompasses incessantly every one of those souls 

10 on whom He heaps His mercies here, in order 
to make them the intimate associates of His own 
eternity hereafter. And we too, in our measure, 
are bound to imitate Him in our exact and vivid 
apprehension of Himself and of His works. As to 

15 Himself, we love Him, not simply in His nature, 
but in His triple personality, lest we become mere 
pantheists. And so, again, we choose our patron 
Saints, not for what they have in common with 
each other (else there could be no room for choice 

20 at all) , but for what is peculiar to them severally. 
That which is my warrant, therefore, for particular 
devotions at all, becomes itself my reason for de- 
votion to St. John Chrysostom. In him I recog- 
nize a special pattern of that very gift of discrimi- 

25 nation. He may indeed be said in some sense to 
have a devotion of his own for every one who 
comes across him, — for persons, ranks, classes, 
callings, societies, considered as Divine works and 
the subjects of his good offices or good will, and 

30 therefore I have a devotion for him. 

It is this observant benevolence which gives to 



CHRYSOSTOM 103 

his exposition of Scripture its chief characteristic. 
He is known in ecclesiastical literature as the 
expounder, above all others, of its literal sense. 
Now in mystical comments the direct object which 
the writer sets before him is the Divine Author 5 
Himself of the written Word. Such a writer 
sees in Scripture, not so much the works of God, 
as His nature and attributes; the Teacher more 
than the definite teaching, or its human instru- 
ments, with their drifts and motives, their courses lO 
of thought, their circumstances and personal 
peculiarities. He loses the creature in the glory 
which surrounds the Creator. The problem be- 
fore him is not what the inspired writer directly 
meant, and why, but, out of the myriad of mean- 15 
ings present to the Infinite Being who inspired him, 
which it is that is most illustrative of that Great 
Being's all-holy attributes and solemn dispositions. 
Thus, in the Psalter, he will drop David and Israel 
and the Temple together, and will recognize noth- 20 
ing there but the shadows of those greater truths 
which remain forever. Accordingly, the mysti- 
cal comment will be of an objective character; 
whereas a writer who delights to ponder human 
nature and human affairs, to analyze the work- 25 
ings of the mind, and to contemplate what is 
subjective to it, is naturally drawn to investigate 
the sense of the sacred writer himself, who was the 
organ of the revelation, that is, he will investigate 
the literal sense. Now, in the instance of St. 30 
Chrysostom, it so happens that literal exposition 



104 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

is the historical characteristic of the school in 
which he was brought up ; so that if he commented 
on Scripture at all, he anyhow would have 
adopted that method; still, there have been 
5 many literal expositors, but only one Chrysos- 
tom. It is St. Chrysostom who is the charm of 
the method, not the method that is the charm 
of St. Chrysostom. 

That charm lies, as I have said, in his habit and 

10 his power of throwing himself into the minds 
of others, of imagining with exactness and with 
sympathy circumstances or scenes which were 
not before him, and of bringing out what he has 
apprehended in words as direct and vivid as the 

15 apprehension. His page is like the table of a 
camera lucida, which represents to us the living 
action and interaction of all that goes on around 
us. That loving scrutiny, with which he follows 
the Apostles as they reveal themselves to us in 

20 their writings, he practices in various ways 
towards all men, living and dead, high and low, 
those whom he admires and those whom he weeps 
over. He writes as one who was ever looking 
out with sharp but kind eyes upon the world of 

25 men and their history; and hence he has always 
something to produce about them, new or old, 
to the purpose of his argument, whether from 
books or from the experience of life. Head and 
heart were full to overflowing with a stream of 

30 mingled " wine and milk," of rich vigorous thought 
and affectionate feeling. This is why his manner 



CHRYSOSTOM 105 

of writing is so rare and special; and why, when 
once a student enters into it, he will ever recog- 
nize him, W'herever he meets with extracts from 
him. 

Letters of Chrysostom, written in Exile 

"To Olympias 

"Why do you bewail me? Why beat your breast, 5 
and abandon yourself to the tyranny of despondency? 
Why are you grieved because you have failed in effect- 
ing my removal from Cucusus ? Yet, as far as your own 
part is concerned, you have effected it, since you have 
left nothing undone in attempting it. Nor have you any lO 
reason to grieve for your ill success ; perhaps it has seemed 
good to God to make my race course longer that my 
crown may be brighter. You ought to leap and dance and 
crown yourself for this, viz., that I should be accounted 
w^orthy of so great a matter, which far exceeds my merit. 15 
Does my present loneliness distress you? On the con- 
trary, what can be more pleasant than my sojourn here? 
I have quiet, calm, much leisure, excellent health. To 
be sure, there is no market in the city, nor anything 
on sale ; but this does not affect me ; for all things, as if 20 
from some fountains, flow in upon me. Here is my lord, 
the Bishop of the place, and my lord Dioscorus, making 
it their sole business to make me comfortable. That 
excellent person Patricius will tell you in what good 
spirits and lightness of mind, and amid what kind 25 
attentions, I am passing my time." — Ep. 14. 

The same is his report to his friends at Csesarea, 
and the same are his expressions of gratitude 
and affection towards them. The following is 
addressed to the President of Cappodocia: 30 



106 CHABACTER SKETCHES 

"To Carterius 

" Cucusus is a place desolate in the extreme ; however, 
it does not annoy me so much by its desolateness as it 
relieves me by its quiet and its leisure. Accordingly, I 
have found a sort of harbor in this desolateness; and 
5 have set me down to recover breath after the miseries 
of the journey, and have availed myself of the quiet to 
dispose of what remained both of my illness and of the 
other troubles which I have undergone. I say this to 
your illustriousness, knowing well the joy you feel in 

10 this rest of mine. I can never forget what you did for 
me in Caesarea, in quelling those furious and senseless 
tumults, and striving to the utmost, as far as your powers 
extended, to place me in security. I give this out pub- 
licly wherever I go, feeling the liveliest gratitude to you, 

15 my most worshipful lord, for so great solicitude towards 
me." — Ep. 236. 

''To Diogenes 

"Cucusus is indeed a desolate spot, and moreover 
unsafe to dwell in, from the continual danger to which 
it is exposed of brigands. You, however, though away, 

20 have turned it for me into a paradise. For, when I 
hear of your abundant zeal and charity in my behalf, 
so genuine and w^arm (it does not at all escape me, far 
removed as I am from you), I possess a great treasure 
and untold wealth in such affection, and feel myself 

25 to be dwelling in the safest of cities, by reason of the 
great gladness which bears me up, and the high consola- 
tion which I enjoy." — Ep. 144. 

Diogenes was one of the friends who sent him 
suppUes : he writes in answer : 

30 "You know very well yourself that I have ever been 
one of your most warmly attached admirers ; therefore 
I beg you will not be hurt at my having returned your 
presents. I have pressed out of them and have quaffed 



CHRYSOSTOM 107 

the honor which they did me ; and if I return the things 
themselves, it has been from no shght or distrust of you, 
but because I was in no need of them. I have done the 
same in the case of many others; for many others too, 
with a generosity like yours, ardent friends of mine, have 5 
made me the same offers ; and the same apology has set 
me right with them which I now ask you to receive. If 
I am in want, I will ask these things of you with much 
freedom, as if they were my own property, nay with 
more, as the event will show. Receive them back, then, 10 
and keep them carefully; so that, if there is a call for 
them some time hence, I may reckon on them." — Ep. 50. 

As a fellow to the above, I add one of his 

letters : 

"To Carteria 

" What are you saying ? that 3^our unintermitting 15 
ailments have hindered you" from visiting me ? but you 
have come, you are present with me. From your very 
intention I have gained all this, nor have you any need 
to excuse yourself in this matter. That warm and true 
charity of yours, so vigorous, so constant, suffices to 20 
make me very happy. What I have ever declared in 
my letters, I now declare again, that, wherever I may be, 
though I be transported to a still more desolate place 
than this, you and your matters I never shall forget. 
Such pledges of your warm and true charity have you 25 
stored up for me, pledges which length of time can never 
obliterate nor waste; but, whether I am near you or far 
away, ever do I cherish that same charity, being as- 
sured of the loyalty and sincerity of your affection for 
me, which has been my comfort hitherto." — Ep. 227. 30 

''To Olympias 

"It is not a light effort/' he says (Ep. 2), "but 
it demands an energetic soul and a great mind to 



108 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

bear separation from one whom we love in the 
charity of Christ. Every one knows this who 
knows what it is to love sincerely, who knows 
the power of supernatural love. Take the blessed 

5 Paul : here was a man who had stripped himself 
of the flesh, and who went about the world 
almost with a disembodied soul, who had exter- 
minated from his heart every wild impulse, and 
who imitated the passionless sereneness of the 

10 immaterial intelligences, and who stood on high 
with the Cherubim, and shared with them in their 
mystical music, and bore prisons, chains, trans- 
portations, scourges, stoning, shipwreck, and every 
form of suffering; yet he, when separated from 

15 one soul loved by him in Christian charity, was 
so confounded and distracted as all at once to 
rush out of that city, in which he did not find the 
beloved one whom he expected. ' When I was 
come to Troas,' he says, 'for the gospel of Christ, 

20 and a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had 
no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus 
my brother; but bidding them farewell, I went 
into Macedonia.' 

"Is it Paul who says this?" he continues; 

25 " Paul who, even when fastened in the stocks, 
when confined in a dungeon, when torn with 
the bloody scourge, did nevertheless convert and 
baptize and offer sacrifice, and was chary even 
of one soul which was seeking salvation? and 

30 now, when he has arrived at Troas, and sees the 
field cleansed of weedS; and ready for the sowing, 



CHBYSOSTOM 109 

and the floor full, and ready to his hand, sud- 
denly he flings away the profit, though he came 
thither expressly for it. ^So it was,' he answers 
me, 'just so; I was possessed by a predominating 
tyranny of sorrow, for Titus was away; and this 5 
so wrought upon me as to compel me to this 
course.' Those who have the grace of charity 
are not content to be united in soul only, they 
seek for the personal presence of him they love. 

" Turn once more to this scholar of charity, and 10 
you will find that so it is. 'We, brethren,' he 
says, 'being bereaved of you for the time of an 
hour, in sight, not in heart, have hastened the 
more abundantly to see your face with great 
desire. For we would have come unto you, 1, 15 
Paul, indeed, once and again, but Satan hath 
hindered us. For which cause, forbearing no 
longer, we thought it good to remain at Athens 
alone, and we sent Timothy.' What force is 
there in each expression ! That flame of charity 20 
living in his soul is manifested with singular 
luminousness. He does not say so much as 
'separated from you,' nor 'torn,' nor 'divided,' 
nor 'abandoned,' but only 'bereaved'; moreover 
not 'for a certain period,' but merely 'for the 25 
time of an hour'; and separated, 'not in heart, 
but in presence only'; again, 'have hastened 
the more abundantly to see your face.' What ! 
it seems charity so captivated you that you 
desiderated their sight, you longed to gaze upon 30 
their earthly, fleshly countenance? 'Indeed I 



110 CHARACTER SKETCHES 

did/ he answers: 'I am not ashamed to say so; 
for in that seeing all the channels of the senses 
meet together, I desire to see your presence; 
for there is the tongue which utters sounds and 

5 announces the secret feelings; there is the hear- 
ing which receives words, and there the eyes 
which image the movements of the soul.' But 
this is not all : not content with writing to them 
letters, he actually sends to them Timothy, who 

10 was with him, and who was more than any letters. 
And, 'We thought it good to remain alone;' 
that is, when he is divided from one brother, 
he says, he is left alone, though he had so many 
others with him." 



11. THE TURK 



The Tartar and the Turk 

You may think, Gentlemen, I have been very 
long in coming to the Turks, and indeed I have 
been longer than I could have wished; but I 
have thought it necessary, in order to your taking 
a just view of them, that you should survey them 5 
first of all in their original condition. When they 
first appear in history they are Huns or Tartars, 
and nothing else; they are indeed in no unim- 
portant respects Tartars even now ; but, had they 
never been made something more than Tartars, lo 
they never would have had much to do with the 
history of the world. In that case, they would 
have had only the fortunes of Attila and Zingis; 
they might have swept over the face of the earth, 
and scourged the human race, powerful to destroy, 15 
helpless to construct, and in consequence ephem- 
eral; but this would have been all. But this has 
not been all, as regards the Turks; for, in spite 
of their intimate resemblance or relationship to 
the Tartar tribes, in spite of their essential bar- 20 
barism to this day, still they, or at least great 
portions of the race, have been put under edu- 
cation; they have been submitted to a slow 
course of change, with a long history and a prof- 
Ill 



112 THE TURK 

itable discipline and fortunes of a peculiar kind; 
and thus they have gained those qualities of 
mind, which alone enable a nation to wield and 
to consolidate imperial power. 
5 I have said that, when first they distinctly 
appear on the scene of history, they are indis- 
tinguishable from Tartars. Mount Altai, the 
high metropolis of Tartary, is surrounded by a 
hilly district, rich not only in the useful, but in 
10 the precious metals. Gold is said to abound 
there; but it is still more fertile in veins of iron, 
which indeed is said to be the most plentiful in 
the world. There have been iron works there 
from time immemorial, and at the time that the 
16 Huns descended on the Roman Empire (in the 
fifth century of the Christian era), we find 
the Turks nothing more than a family of slaves, 
employed as workers of the ore and as blacksmiths 
by the dominant tribe. Suddenly in the course 
20 of fifty years, soon after the fall of the Hunnish 
power in Europe, with the sudden development 
peculiar to Tartars, we find these Turks spread 
from East to West, and lords of a territory so 
extensive, that they were connected, by relations 
25 of peace or war, at once with the Chinese, the 
Persians, and the Romans. They had reached 
Kamtchatka on the North, the Caspian on the 
West, and perhaps even the mouth of the Indus 
on the South. Here then we have an inter- 
so mediate empire of Tartars, placed between the 
eras of Attila and Zingis; but in this sketch it has 



THE TARTAR AND THE TURK 113 

no place, except as belonging to Turkish history, 
because it was contained within the limits of 
Asia, and, though it lasted for 200 years, it only 
faintly affected the political transactions of 
Europe. However, it was not without some sort 5 
of influence on Christendom, for the Romans in- 
terchanged embassies with its sovereign in the 
reign of the then Greek Emperor Justin the 
younger (a.d. 570), with the view of engaging 
him in a warlike alliance against Persia. Theio 
account of one of these embassies remains, and 
the picture it presents of the Turks is important, 
because it seems clearly to identify them with 
the Tartar race. 

For instance, in the mission to the Tartars 15 
from the Pope, which I have already spoken of, 
the friars were led between two fires, when they 
approached the Khan, and they at first refused 
to follow, thinking they might be countenancing 
some magical rite. Now we find it recorded of 20 
this Roman embassy, that, on its arrival, it was 
purified by the Turks with fire and incense. As 
to incense, which seems out of place among such 
barbarians, it is remarkable that it is used in 
the ceremonial of the Turkish court to this day. 25 
At least Sir Charles Fellows, in his work on the 
Antiquities of Asia Minor, in 1838, speaks of the 
Sultan as going to the festival of Bairam with 
incense-bearers before him. Again, when the 
Romans were presented to the great Khan, they so 
found him in his tent, seated on a throne, to which 



114 THE TURK 

wheels were attached and horses attachable, in 
other words, a Tartar wagon. Moreover, they 
were entertained at a banquet which lasted the 
greater part of the day; and an intoxicating 

5 liquor, not wine, which was sweet and pleasant, 
was freely presented to them; evidently the 
Tartar koumiss} The next day they had a 
second entertainment in a still more splendid 
tent ; the hangings were of embroidered silk, and 

10 the throne, the cups, and the vases were of gold. 
On the third day, the pavilion, in which they were 
received, was supported on gilt columns ; a couch 
of massive gold was raised on four gold peacocks; 
and before the entrance to the tent was what 

15 might be called a sideboard, only that it was a 
sort of barricade of wagons, laden with dishes, 
basins, and statues of solid silver. All these 
points in the description — the silk hangings, the 
gold vessels, the successively increasing splendor 

20 of the entertainments — remind us of the courts 
of Zingis and Timour, 700 and 900 years after- 
wards. 

This empire, then, of the Turks was of a Tartar 
character; yet it was the first step of their pass- 

25 ing from barbarism to that degree of civilization 
which is their historical badge. And it was their 
first step in civilization, not so much by what 
it did in its day, as (unless it be a paradox to 
say so) by its coming to an end. Indeed it so 

30 happens, that those Turkish tribes which have 

^ Univ. Hist. Modern, vol. iii. p. 346. 



THE TARTAR AND THE TURK 115 

changed their original character and have a place 
in the history of the world, have obtained their 
status and their qualifications for it, by a process 
very different from that which took place in the 
nations most familiar to us. What this process 5 
has been I will say presently; first, however, let 
us observe that, fortunately for our purpose, w^e 
have still specimens existing of those other 
Turkish tribes, which were never submitted to 
this process of education and change, and, inio 
looking at them as they now exist, we see at this 
very day the Turkish nationality in something 
very like its original form, and are able to decide 
for ourselves on its close approximation to the 
Tartar. You may recollect I pointed out to 15 
you. Gentlemen, in the opening of these lectures, 
the course which the pastoral tribes, or nomads 
as they are often called, must necessarily take 
in their emigrations. They were forced along 
in one direction till they emerged from their 20 
mountain valleys, and descended their high 
plateau at the end of Tartary, and then they had 
the opportunity of turning south. If they did 
not avail themselves of this opening, but went on 
still westward, their next southern pass would 25 
be the defiles of the Caucasus and Circassia, to 
the west of the Caspian. If they did not use this, 
they would skirt the top of the Black Sea, and 
so reach Europe. Thus in the emigration of the 
Huns from China, you may recollect a tribe of 30 
them turned to the South as soon as they could, 



116 THE TURK 

and settled themselves between the high Tartar 
land and the sea of Aral, while the main body 
went on to the furthest West by the north of the 
Black Sea. Now with this last passage into 
5 Europe we are not here concerned, for the Turks 
have never introduced themselves to Europe by 
means of it ; ^ but with those two southward 
passages which are Asiatic, viz., that to the east 
of the Aral, and that to the west of the Caspian. 

10 The Turkish tribes have all descended upon the 
civilized world by one or other of these two roads; 
and I observe, that those which have descended 
along the east of the Aral have changed their 
social habits and gained political power, while 

15 those which descended to the west of the Caspian 
remain pretty much what they ever were. The 
former of these go among us by the general 
name of Turks; the latter are the Turcomans 
or Turkmans. ... At the very date at which 

2oHeraclius called the Turcomans into Georgia, at 
the very date when their Eastern brethren 
crossed the northern border of Sogdiana, an event 
of most momentous import had occurred in the 
South. A new religion had arisen in Arabia. 

25 The impostor Mahomet, announcing himself the 
Prophet of God, was writing the pages of that 
book, and molding the faith of that people, which 
was to subdue half the known world. The Turks 
passed the Jaxartes southward in a. d. 626; just 

^ I am here assuming that the Magyars are not of the 
Turkish stock ; vid. Gibbon and Pritchard. 



THE TARTAR AND THE TURK 117 

four years before Mahomet had assumed the royal 
dignity, and just six years after, on his death, 
his followers began the conquest of the Persian 
Empire. In the course of 20 years they effected 
it; Sogdiana was at its very extremity, or its 5 
borderland; there the last king of Persia took 
refuge from the south, while the Turks were pour- 
ing into it from the north. There was little to 
choose for the unfortunate prince between the 
Turk and the Saracen; the Turks were hisio 
hereditary foe; they had been the giants and 
monsters of the popular poetry; but he threw 
himself into their arms. They engaged in his 
service, betrayed him, murdered him, and meas- 
ured themselves with the Saracens in his stead. 15 
Thus the military strength of the north and south 
of Asia, the Saracenic and the Turkish, came into 
memorable conflict in the regions of which I have 
said so much. The struggle was a fierce one, and 
lasted many years; the Turks striving to force 20 
their way down to the ocean, the Saracens to 
drive them back into their Scythian deserts. 
They first fought this issue in Bactriana or 
Khorasan; the Turks got the worst of the fight, 
and then it was thrown back upon Sogdiana 25 
itself, and there it ended again in favor of the 
Saracens. At the end of 90 years from the time 
of the first Turkish descent on this fair region, 
they relinquished it to their Mahometan oppo- 
nents. The conquerors found it rich, populous, so 
and powerful; its cities, Carisme, Bokhara, and 



118 THE TURK 

Samarcand, were surrounded beyond their forti- 
fications by a suburb of fields and gardens, which 
was in turn protected by exterior works ; its plains 
were well cultivated, and its commerce extended 

5 from China to Europe. Its riches were propor- 
tionally great; the Saracens were able to extort 
a tribute of two million gold pieces from the 
inhabitants; we read, moreover, of the crown 
jewels of one of the Turkish princesses; and of 

10 the buskin of another, which she dropt in her 
flight from Bokhara, as being worth two thou- 
sand pieces of gold.^ Such had been the prosperity 
of the barbarian invaders, such was its end; but 
not their end, for adversity did them service, as 

15 well as prosperity, as we shall see. 

It is usual for historians to say, that the 
triumph of the South threw the Turks back again 
upon their northern solitudes; and this might 
easily be the case with some of the many hordes, 

20 which were ever passing the boundary and flock- 
ing down; but it is no just account of the his- 
torical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeed 
do the Oriental nations present us with an ex- 
ample of versatility of character; the Turks, for 

25 instance, of this day are substantially what they 
were four centuries ago. We cannot conceive, 
were Turkey overrun by the Russians at the 
present moment, that the fanatical tribes, which 
are pouring into Constantinople from Asia Minor, 

30 would submit to the foreign yoke, take service 
1 Gibbon. 



THE TARTAR AND THE TURK 119 

under their conquerors, become soldiers, custom- 
officers, police, men of business, attaches, states- 
men, working their way up from the ranks and 
from the masses into influence and power; but, 
whether from skill in the Saracens, or from far- 5 
reaching sagacity in the Turks (and it is difficult 
to assign it to either cause), so it was, that a 
process of this nature followed close upon the 
Mahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to be 
traced in detail to a variety of accidents. Manyio 
of the Turks probably were made slaves, and the 
service to which they were subjected was no 
matter of choice. Numbers had got attached to 
the soil; and inheriting the blood of Persians, 
White Huns, or aboriginal inhabitants for three 15 
generations, had simply unlearned the wildness 
of the Tartar shepherd. Others fell victims to 
the religion of their conquerors, which ultimately, 
as we know, exercised a most remarkable in- 
fluence upon them. Not all at once, but as 20 
tribe descended after tribe, and generation fol- 
lowed generation, they succumbed to the creed 
of Mahomet; and they embraced it with the 
ardor and enthusiasm which Franks and Saxons 
so gloriously and meritoriously manifested in their 25 
conversion to Christianity. 

Here again was a very powerful instrument 
in modification of their national character. Let 
me illustrate it in one particular. If there is one 
peculiarity above another, proper to the savage 30 
and to the Tartar, it is that of excitability and 



120 TEE TURK 

impetuosity on ordinary occasions; the Turks, 
on the other hand, are nationally remarkable for 
gravity and almost apathy of demeanor. Now 
there are evidently elements in the Mahometan 

5 creed, which would tend to change them from 
the one temperament to the other. Its stern- 
ness, its coldness, its doctrine of fatalism; even 
the truths which it borrowed from Revelation, 
when separated from the truths it rejected, its 

10 monotheism untempered by mediation, its severe 
view of the Divine attributes, of the law, and of a 
sure retribution to come, wrought both a gloom 
and also an improvement in the barbarian, not 
very unlike the effect which some forms of 

15 Protestantism produce among ourselves. But 
whatever was the mode of operation, certainly 
it is to their religion that this peculiarity of the 
Turks is ascribed by competent judges. Lieu- 
tenant Wood in his journal gives us a lively 

20 account of a peculiarity of theirs, which he un- 
hesitatingly attributes to Islamism. " Nowhere," 
he says, " is the difference between European and 
Mahometan society more strongly marked than 
in the lower walks of life. ... A Kasid, or 

25 messenger, for example, will come into a public 
department, deliver his letters in full durbar, and 
demean himself throughout the interview with 
so much composure and self-possession, that an 
European can hardly believe that his grade in 

30 society is so low. After he has delivered his let- 
ters, he takes his seat among the crowd, and 



THE TARTAR AND THE TURK 121 

answers, calmly and without hesitation, all the 
questions which may be addressed to him, or 
communicates the verbal instructions with which 
he has been intrusted by his employer, and 
which are often of more importance than the let- 5 
ters themselves. Indeed, all the inferior classes 
possess an innate self-respect, and a natural 
gravity of deportment, which differs as far from 
the suppleness of a Hindustani as from the awk- 
ward rusticity of an English clown." ... " Even 10 
children," he continues, '' in Mahometan countries 
have an unusual degree of gravity in their deport- 
ment. The boy, who can but lisp his ^ Peace be 
with you,' has imbibed this portion of the national 
character. In passing through a village, these 15 
little men will place their hands upon their 
breasts, and give the usual greeting. Frequently 
have I seen the children of chiefs approach their 
father's durbar, and stopping short at the thresh- 
old of the door, utter the shout of 'Salam Ali-20 
Kum,' so as to draw all eyes upon them; but 
nothing daunted, they marched boldly into the 
room, and sliding down upon their knees, folded 
their arms and took their seat upon the musnad 
with all the gravity of grown-up persons." 25 

As Islamism has changed the demeanor of the 
Turks, so doubtless it has in other ways materially 
innovated on their Tartar nature. It has given 
an aim to their military efforts, a political prin- 
ciple, and a social bond. It has laid them under 30 
a sense of responsibility, has molded them into 



122 TUE TURK 

consistency, and taught them a course of policy 
and perseverance in it. But to treat this part 
of the subject adequately to its importance would 
require, Gentlemen, a research and a fullness of 

5 discussion unsuitable to the historical sketch 
which I have undertaken. I have said enough 
for my purpose upon this topic; and indeed 
on the general question of the modification of 
national character to which the Turks were at 

10 this period subjected. 

The Turk and the Saracen 

Mere occupation of a rich country is not 
enough for civilization, as I have granted already. 
The Turks came into the pleasant plains and 
valleys of Sogdiana; the Turcomans into the 

15 well-wooded mountains and sunny slopes of Asia 
Minor. The Turcomans were brought out of 
their dreary deserts, yet they retained their old 
habits, and they remain barbarians to this day. 
But why ? it must be borne in mind, they neither 

20 subjugated the inhabitants of their new country 
on the one hand, nor were subjugated by them 
on the other. They never had direct or intimate 
relations with it; they were brought into it by 
the Roman Government at Constantinople as its 

25 auxiliaries, but they never naturalized themselves 
there. They were like gypsies in England, except 
that they were mounted freebooters instead of 
pilferers and fortune tellers. It was far other- 



THE TURK AND THE SARACEN 123 

wise with their brethren in Sogdiana ; they were 
there first as conquerors, then as conquered. 
First they held it in possession as their prize for 
90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and 
enjoyment of it. Next, their poUtical ascendency 5 
over it involved, as in the case of the White Huns, 
some sort of moral surrender of themselves to it. 
What was the first consequence of this? that, 
like the White Huns, they intermarried with the 
races they found there. We know the custom lo 
of the Tartars and Turks; under such circum- 
stances they would avail themselves of their 
national practice of polygamy to its full extent 
of license. In the course of twenty years a new 
generation would arise of a mixed race ; and is 
these in turn would marry into the native popu- 
lation, and at the end of ninety or a hundred 
years we should find the great-grandsons or the 
great-great-grandsons of the wild marauders who 
first crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their 20 
ancestors in features both of mind and body, 
that they hardly would be recognized as deserving 
the Tartar name. At the end of that period their 
power came to an end, the Saracens became 
masters of them and of their country, but the 25 
process of emigration southward from the Scyth- 
ian desert, which had never intermitted during 
the years of their domination, continued still, 
though that domination was no more. 

Here it is necessary to have a clear idea of the 30 
nature of that association of the Turkish tribes 



124 THE TUBE 

from the Volga to the Eastern Sea, to which I 
have given the name of Empire : it was not so 
much of a pohtical as of a national character; 
it was the power, not of a system, but of a race. 

5 They were not one well-organized state, but a 
number of independent tribes, acting generally 
together, acknowledging one leader or not, ac- 
cording to circumstances, combining and coop- 
erating from the identity of object which acted 

10 on them, and often jealous of each other and 
quarreling with each other on account of that 
very identity. Each tribe made its way down to 
the south as it could; one blocked up the way of 
the other for a time; there were stoppages and 

15 collisions, but there was a continual movement 
and progress. Down they came one after another, 
like wolves after their prey; and as the tribes 
which came first became partially civilized, and 
as a mixed generation arose, these would naturally 

20 be desirous of keeping back their less polished 
uncles or cousins, if they could; and would do so 
successfully for a while : but cupidity is stronger 
than conservatism; and so, in spite of delay and 
difficulty, down they would keep coming, and 

25 down they did come, even after and in spite of 
the overthrow of their Empire; crowding down 
as to a new world, to get what they could, as 
adventurers, ready to turn to the right or the 
left, prepared to struggle on anyhow, willing to 

so be forced forward into countries farther still, 
careless what might turn up, so that they did but 



TilE TURK AND THE SARACEN 125 

get down. And this was the process which went 
on (whatever were their fortunes when they 
actually got down, prosperous or adverse) for 
400, nay, I will say for 700 years. The store- 
house of the north was never exhausted; it sus- 5 
tained the never ending run upon its resources. 
I was just now referring to a change in the 
Turks, which I have mentioned before, and 
which had as important a bearing as any other 
of their changes upon their subsequent fortunes, lo 
It was a change in their physiognomy and shape, 
so striking as to recommend them to their mas- 
ters for the purposes of war or of display. In- 
stead of bearing any longer the hideous exterior 
which in the Huns frightened the Romans and 15 
Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as the 
ninth century, when they had been among the 
natives of Sogdiana only two hundred years, 
for the beauty of their persons. An important 
political event was the result: hence the intro-20 
duction of the Turks into the heart of the Sara- 
cenic empire. By this time the Caliphs had 
removed from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia was 
the imperial province, and into Persia they were 
introduced for the reason I have mentioned, 25 
sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives taken 
in war, sometimes as mercenaries for the Sara- 
cenic armies: at length they were enrolled as 
guards to the Caliph, and even appointed to 
offices in the palace, to the command of the forces, 30 
and to governorships in the provinces. The son 



126 THE TURK 

of the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as many 
as 50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. And 
thus slowly and silently they made their way to 
the south, not with the pomp and pretense of 

5 conquest, but by means of that ordinary inter- 
communion which connected one portion of the 
empire of the Caliphs with another. In this man- 
ner they were introduced even into Egypt. 
This was their history for a hundred and fifty 

10 years, and what do we suppose would be the 
result of this importation of barbarians into the 
heart of a flourishing empire? Would they be 
absorbed as slaves or settlers in the mass of the 
population, or would they, like mercenaries else- 

15 where, be fatal to the power that introduced 
them? The answer is not difficult, considering 
that their very introduction argued a want of 
energy and resource in the rulers whom they 
served. To employ them was a confession of 

20 weakness; the Saracenic power indeed was not 
very aged, but the Turkish was much younger, 
and more vigorous; then too must be con- 
sidered the difference of national character be- 
tween the Turks and the Saracens. A writer of 

25 the beginning of the present century^ compares 
the Turks to the Romans; such parallels are 
generally fanciful and fallacious; but, if we must 
accept it in the present instance, we may com- 
plete the picture by likening the Saracens and 

30 Persians to the Greeks, and we know what was 

^ Thornton. 



THE TUBK AND THE SABACEN 127 

the result of the colUsion between Greece and 
Rome. The Persians were poets, the Saracens 
were philosophers. The mathematics, astronomy, 
and botany were especial subjects of the studies of 
the latter. Their observatories were celebrated, 5 
and they may be considered to have originated 
the science of chemistry. The Turks, on the 
other hand, though they are said to have a lit- 
erature, and though certain of their princes have 
been patrons of letters, have never distinguished lo 
themselves in exercises of pure intellect; but 
they have had an energy of character, a perti- 
nacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, in 
a word, they then had the qualities of mind nec- 
essary for ruling, in far greater measure, than is 
the people they were serving. The Saracens, 
like the Greeks, carried their arms over the sur- 
face of the earth with an unrivaled brilliancy 
and an uncheckered success ; but their dominion, 
like that of Greece, did not last for more than 20 
200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly through 
many centuries, and its influence lasts to this 
day; the Turkish race battled with difficulties 
and reverses, and made its way on amid tumult 
and complication, for a good 1000 years from 25 
first to last, till at length it found itself in pos- 
session of Constantinople, and a terror to the 
whole of Europe. It has ended its career upon 
the throne of Constantine; it began it as the 
slave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire, 30 
of Persia and Sogdiana. 



128 THE TUBK 

As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed one 
season of power and then in turn of reverse which 
there befell the Turks; and next a more remark- 
able outbreak and its reaction mark their presence 

sin Persia. I have spoken of the formidable force, 
consisting of Turks, which formed the guard of 
the Caliphs immediately after the time of Harun 
al Raschid: suddenly they rebelled against 
their master, burst into his apartment at the 

10 hour of supper, murdered him, and cut his body 
into seven pieces. They got possession of the 
symbols of imperial power, the garment and the 
staff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make and 
unmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the course 

15 of four years they had elevated, deposed, and 
murdered as many as three. At their wanton 
caprice, they made these successors of the false 
prophet the sport of their insults and their blows. 
They dragged them by the feet, stripped them, 

20 and exposed them to the burning sun, beat them 
with iron clubs, and left them for days without 
food. At length, however, the people of Bagdad 
were roused in defense of the Caliphate, and the 
Turks for a time were brought under; but they 

25 remained in the country, or rather, by the short- 
sighted policy of the moment, were dispersed 
throughout it, and thus became in the sequel 
ready-made elements of revolution for the pur- 
poses of other traitors of their own race, who, at 

30 a later period, as we shall presently see, descended 
on Persia from Turkistan. 



THE TURK AND THE SAB AC EN 129 

Indeed, events were opening the way slowly, 
but surely, to their ascendency. Throughout the 
whole of the tenth century, which followed, they 
seem to disappear from history; but a silent 
revolution was all along in progress, leading them 5 
forward to their great destiny. The empire of 
the Caliphate was already dying in its extremi- 
ties, and Sogdiana was one of the first countries 
to be detached from his power. The Turks were 
still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the lO 
army and the offices of the government; but the 
political changes which took place were not at 
first to their visible advantage. What first oc- 
curred was the revolt of the Caliph's viceroy, 
who made himself a great kingdom or empire out 15 
of the provinces around, extending it from the 
Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary of 
Sogdiana, almost to the Indian Ocean, and 
from the confines of Georgia to the mountains 
of Afghanistan. The dynasty thus established 20 
lasted for four generations and for the space of 
ninety years. Then the successor happened to 
be a boy; and one of his servants, the governor 
of Khorasan, an able and experienced man, was 
forced by circumstances to rebellion against him. 25 
He was successful, and the whole power of this 
great kingdom fell into his hands; now he was a 
Tartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turks 
suddenly appear in history, the acknowledged 
masters of a southern dominion. 30 

This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish 



130 THE TUBK 

dynasty of the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh, 
or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and it 
lasted for two hundred years. We are not par- 
ticularly concerned in it, because it has no direct 

5 relations with Europe; but it falls into our sub- 
ject, as having been instrumental to the advance 
of the Turks towards the West. Its most dis- 
tinguished monarch was Mahmood, and he 
conquered Hindostan, which became eventually 

10 the seat of the empire. In Mahmood the Gazne- 
vide we have a prince of true Oriental splendor. 
For him the title of Sultan or Soldan was invented, 
which henceforth became the special badge of the 
Turkish monarchs; as Khan is the title of the 

15 sovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the sov- 
ereign of the Saracens. I have already described 
generally the extent of his dominions : he in- 
herited Sogdiana, Carisme, Khorasan, and Cabul ; 
but, being a zealous Mussulman, he obtained the 

20 title of Gazi, or champion, by his reduction of 
Hindostan, and his destruction of its idol tem- 
ples. There was no need, however, of religious 
enthusiasm to stimulate him to the war: the 
riches, which he amassed in the course of it, were 

25 a recompense amply sufficient. His Indian expe- 
ditions in all amounted to twelve, and they abound 
in battles and sieges of a truly Oriental cast. . . . 
We have now arrived at what may literally be 
called the turning point of Turkish history. We 

30 have seen them gradually descend from the north, 
and in a certain degree become acclimated in the 



THE TURK AND THE SARACEN 131 

countries where they settled. They first appear 
across the Jaxartes in the beginning of the seventh 
century; they have now come to the beginning 
of the eleventh. Four centuries or thereabout 
have they been out of their deserts, gaining ex- 5 
perience and educating themselves in such meas- 
ure as was necessary for playing their part in 
the civilized world. First they came down into 
Sogdiana and Khorasan, and the country below 
it, as conquerors ; they continued in it as sub- lo 
jects and slaves. They offered their services to 
the race which had subdued them; they made 
their way by means of their new masters down to 
the west and the south ; they laid the foundations 
for their future supremacy in Persia, and gradu- is 
ally rose upwards through the social fabric to 
which they had been admitted, till they found 
themselves at length at the head of it. The 
sovereign power which they had acquired in the 
line of the Gaznevides, drifted off to Hindostan;20 
but still fresh tribes of their race poured down 
from the north, and filled up the gap; and while 
one dynasty of Turks was established in the 
peninsula, a second dynasty arose in the former 
seat of their power. 25 

Now I call the era at which I have arrived the 
turning point of their fortunes, because, when 
they had descended down to Khorasan and the 
countries below it, they might have turned to the 
East or to the West, as they chose. They were so 
at liberty to turn their forces eastward against 



132 THE TUBK 

their kindred in Hindostan, whom they had driven 
out of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face towards 
the west, and make their way thither through the 
Saracens of Persia and its neighboring countries. 

5 It was an era which determined the history of the 
world. . . . 

But this era was a turning point in their his- 
tory in another and more serious respect. In 
Sogdiana and Khorasan, they had become con- 

10 verts to the Mahometan faith. You will not sup- 
pose I am going to praise a religious imposture, 
but no Catholic need deny that it is, considered 
in itself, a great improvement upon Paganism. 
Paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no 

15 supreme and immutable judge, no intelligible 
revelation, no fixed dogma whatever; on the 
other hand, the being of one God, the fact of His 
revelation, His faithfulness to His promises, the 
eternity of the moral law, the certainty of future 

20 retribution, were borrowed by Mahomet from the 
Church, and are steadfastly held by his followers. 
The false prophet taught much which is materially 
true and objectively important, whatever be its 
subjective and formal value and influence in the 

25 individuals who profess it. He stands in his 
creed between the religion of God and the religion 
of devils, between Christianity and idolatry, 
between the West and the extreme East. And 
so stood the Turks, on adopting his faith, at 

30 the date I am speaking of ; they stood between 
Christ in the West, and Satan in the East; and 



THE TUBK AND THE SABACEN 133 

they had to make their choice ; and, alas ! they 
were led by the circumstances of the time to 
oppose themselves, not to Paganism, but to 
Christianity. A happier lot indeed had befallen 
poor Sultan Mahmood than befell his kindred 5 
who followed in his wake. Mahmood, a Mahome- 
tan, went eastward and found a superstition 
worse than his own, and fought against it, and 
smote it; and the sandal doors which he tore 
away from the idol temple and hung up at hisio 
tomb at Gazneh, almost seemed to plead for him 
through centuries as the soldier and the instru- 
ment of Heaven. The tribes which followed him, 
Moslem also, faced westward, and found, not 
error but truth, and fought against it as zealousl}^, is 
and in doing so, were simply tools of the Evil One, 
and preachers of a lie, and enemies, not witnesses 
of God. The one destroyed idol temples, the 
other Christian shrines. The one has been saved 
the woe of persecuting the Bride of the Lamb; 20 
the other is of all races the veriest brood of the 
serpent which the Church has encountered since 
she was set up. For 800 years did the sandal 
gates remain at Mahmood's tomb, as a trophy 
over idolatry; and for 800 years have Seljuk25 
and Othman been our foe. 

The year 1048 of our era is fixed by chronolo- 
gists as the date of the rise of the Turkish power, 
as far as Christendom is interested in its history.^ 
Sixty-three years before this date, a Turk of high 30 

^ Baronius, Pagi. 



134 THE TURK 

rank, of the name of Seljuk, had quarreled with 
his native prince in Turkistan, crossed the Jax- 
artes with his followers, and planted himself in 
the territory of Sogdiana. His father had been 

5 a chief officer in the prince's court, and was the 
first of his family to embrace Islamism; but Sel- 
juk, in spite of his creed, did not obtain permission 
to advance into Sogdiana from the Saracenic gov- 
ernment, which at that time was in possession of 

10 the country. After several successful encounters, 
however, he gained admission into the city of Bok- 
hara, and there he settled. As time went on, he 
fully recompensed the tardy hospitality which 
the Saracens had shown him; for his feud with 

15 his own countrymen, whom he had left, took the 
shape of a religious enmity, and he fought against 
them as pagans and infidels, with a zeal, which 
was both an earnest of the devotion of his people 
to the faith of Mahomet, and a training for the 

20 exercise of it. . . . 

For four centuries the Turks are little or hardly 
heard of; then suddenly in the course of as many 
tens of years, and under three Sultans, they make 
the whole world resound with their deeds; and, 

25 while they have pushed to the East through 
Hindostan, in the West they have hurried down 
to the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Archi- 
pelago, have taken Jerusalem, and threatened 
Constantinople. In their long period of silence 

30 they had been sowing the seeds of future con- 
quests; in their short period of action they were 



THE TUBE AND THE SARACEN 135 

gathering the fruit of past labors and sufferings. 
The Saracenic empire stood apparently as before; 
but, as soon as a Turk showed himself at the head 
of a military force within its territory, he found 
himself surrounded by the armies of his kindred 5 
which had been so long in its pay; he was joined 
by the tribes of Turcomans, to whom the Romans 
in a former age had shown the passes of the 
Caucasus; and he could rely on the reserve of 
innumerable swarms, ever issuing out of his lO 
native desert, and following in his track. Such 
was the state of Western Asia in the middle of 
the eleventh century. 

Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the line of 
Seljuk, is said to signify in Turkish " the coura- 15 
geous lion" : and the Caliph gave its possessor the 
Arabic appellation of Azzaddin, or " Protector of 
Religion." It was the distinctive work of his 
short reign to pass from humbling the Caliph to 
attacking the Greek Emperor. Togrul had al-20 
ready invaded the Greek provinces of Asia Minor, 
from Cilicia to Armenia, along a line of 600 miles, 
and here it was that he had achieved his tre- 
mendous massacres of Christians. Alp Arslan 
renewed the war; he penetrated to Csesarea in 25 
Cappadocia, attracted by the gold and pearls 
which incrusted the shrine of the great St. Basil. 
He then turned his arms against Armenia and 
Georgia, and conquered the hardy mountaineers 
of the Caucasus, who at present give such trouble 30 
to the Russians. After this he encountered, 



136 THE TUBE 

defeated, and captured the Greek Emperor. He 
began the battle with all the solemnity and 
pageantry of a hero of romance. Casting away 
his bow and arrows, he called for an iron mace and 
5scimeter; he perfumed his body with musk, as 
if for his burial, and dressed himself in white, 
that he might be slain in his winding sheet. 
After his victory, the captive Emperor of New 
Rome was brought before him in a peasant's 

10 dress; he made him kiss the ground beneath his 
feet, and put his foot upon his neck. Then, rais- 
ing him up, he struck or patted him three times 
with his hand, and gave him his life and, on a 
large ransom, his liberty. 

15 At this time the Sultan was only forty-four 
years of age, and seemed to have a career of glory 
still before him. Twelve hundred nobles stood 
before his throne ; two hundred thousand soldiers 
marched under his banner. As if dissatisfied 

20 with the South, he turned his arms against his 
own paternal wildernesses, with which his fam- 
ily, as I have related, had a feud. New tribes 
of Turks seem to have poured down, and were 
wresting Sogdiana from the race of Seljuk, as 

25 the Seljukians had wrested it from the Gazne- 
vides. Alp had not advanced far into the coun- 
try, when he met his death from the hand of a 
captive. A Carismian chief had withstood his 
progress, and, being taken, was condemned to a 

30 lingering execution. On hearing the sentence, he 
rushed forward upon Alp Arslan ; and the Sultan, 



THE TURK AND THE SARACEN 137 

disdaining to let his generals interfere, bent his 
bow, but, missing his aim, received the dagger of 
his prisoner in his breast. His death, which fol- 
lowed, brings before us that grave dignity of the 
Turkish character, of which we have already had 5 
an example in Mahmood. Finding his end ap- 
proaching, he has left on record a sort of dying 
confession: "In my youth," he said, "I was 
advised by a sage to humble myself before God, 
to distrust my own strength, and never to despise lo 
the most contemptible foe. I have neglected 
these lessons, and my neglect has been deservedly 
punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, 1 be- 
held the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit 
of my armies ; the earth seemed to tremble under 15 
my feet, and I said in my heart. Surely thou art 
the king of the world, the greatest and most 
invincible of warriors. These armies are no 
longer mine; and, in the confidence of my per- 
sonal strength, I now fall by the hand of an 20 
assassin." On his tomb was engraven an inscrip- 
tion, conceived in a similar spirit. " O ye, who 
have seen the glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the 
heavens, repair to Maru, and you will behold it 
buried in the dust." ^ Alp Arslan was adorned 25 
with great natural qualities both of intellect and 
of soul. He was brave and liberal : just, patient, 
and sincere: constant in his prayers, diligent in 
his alms, and, it is added, witty in his conversa- 
tion; but his gifts availed him not. 30 

1 Gibbon. 



138 THE TURK 

It often happens in the history of states and 
races, in which there is found first a rise and then 
a decUne, that the greatest glories take place just 
then when the reverse is beginning or begun. 

5 Thus, for instance, in the history of the Otto- 
man Turks, to which I have not yet come. Soli- 
man the Magnificent is at once the last and 
greatest of a series of great Sultans. So was it 
as regards this house of Seljuk. Malek Shah, the 

10 son of Alp Arslan, the third sovereign, in whom 
its glories ended, is represented to us in history 
in colors so bright and perfect, that it is difficult 
to believe we are not reading the account of some 
mythical personage. He came to the throne at 

15 the early age of seventeen; he was well-shaped, 
handsome, polished both in manners and in 
mind; wise and courageous, pious and sincere. 
He engaged himself even more in the consolida- 
tion of his empire than in its extension. He 

20 reformed abuses; he reduced the taxes; he re- 
paired the highroads, bridges, and canals; he 
built an imperial mosque at Bagdad; he founded 
and nobly endowed a college. He patronized 
learning and poetry, and he reformed the calen- 

25dar. He provided marts for commerce; he 
upheld the pure administration of justice, and 
protected the helpless and the innocent. He 
established wells and cisterns in great numbers 
along the road of pilgrimage to Mecca; he fed 

30 the pilgrims, and distributed immense sums 
among the poor. 



THE TURK AND THE SAEACEN 139 

He was in every respect a great prince; he 
extended his conquests across Sogdiana to the 
very borders of China. He subdued by his 
lieutenants Syria and the Holy Land, and took 
Jerusalem. He is said to have traveled round 5 
his vast dominions twelve times. So potent was 
he, that he actually gave away kingdoms, and 
had for feudatories great princes. He gave to 
his cousin his territories in Asia Minor, and 
planted him over against Constantinople, as anio 
earnest of future conquests; and he may be said 
to have finally allotted to the Turcomans the 
fair regions of Western Asia, over which they 
roam to this day. 

All human greatness has its term; the more 15 
brilliant was this great Sultan's rise, the more 
sudden was his extinction; and the earlier he 
came to his power, the earlier did he lose it. He 
had reigned twenty years, and was but thirty- 
seven years old, when he was lifted up with pride 20 
and came to his end. He disgraced and aban- 
doned to an assassin his faithful vizir, at the age 
of ninety-three, who for thirty years had been the 
servant and benefactor of the house of Seljuk. 
After obtaining from the Caliph the peculiar 25 
and almost incommunicable title of "the com- 
mander of the faithful," unsatisfied still, he 
wished to fix his own throne in Bagdad, and to 
deprive his impotent superior of his few remain- 
ing honors. He demanded the hand of the 30 
daughter of the Greek Emperor, a Christian, in 



140 THE TURK 

marriage. A few days, and he was no more; 
he had gone out hunting, and returned indis- 
posed; a vein was opened, and the blood would 
not flow. A burning fever took him off, only 

5 eighteen days after the murder of his vizir, and 
less than ten before the day when the Caliph was 
to have been removed from Bagdad. 

Such is human greatness at the best, even were 
it ever so innocent ; but as to this poor Sultan, 

10 there is another aspect even of his glorious deeds. 
If I have seemed here or elsewhere in these Lec- 
tures to speak of him or his with interest or 
admiration, only take me. Gentlemen, as giving 
the external view of the Turkish history, and that 

15 as introductory to the determination of its true 
significance. Historians and poets may celebrate 
the exploits of Malek ; but what were they in the 
sight of Him who has said that whoso shall strike 
against His cornerstone shall be broken; but 

20 on whomsoever it shall fall, shall be ground to 
powder? Looking at this vSultan's deeds as 
mere exhibitions of human power, they were 
brilliant and marvelous; but there was another 
judgment of them formed in the West, and other 

25 feelings than admiration roused by them in the 
faith and the chivalry of Christendom. Espe- 
cially was there one, the divinely appointed 
shepherd of the poor of Christ, the anxious 
steward of His Church, who from his high and 

30 ancient watch tower, in the fullness of apostolic 
charity, surveyed narrowly what was going on at 



THE TURK AND THE SARACEN 141 

thousands of miles from him, and with prophetic 
eye looked into the future age; and scarcely had 
that enemy, who was in the event so heavily to 
smite the Christian world, shown himself, when 
he gave warning of the danger, and prepared 5 
himself with measures for averting it. Scarcely 
had the Turk touched the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean and the Archipelago, when the Pope 
detected and denounced him before all Europe. 
The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, was lo 
then upon the throne of the Apostle ; and though 
he was engaged in one of the severest conflicts 
which Pope has ever sustained, not only against 
the secular power, but against bad bishops and 
priests, yet at a time when his very life was not 15 
his own, and present responsibilities so urged 
him, that one would fancy he had time for no 
other thought, Gregory was able to turn his mind 
to the consideration of a contingent danger in the 
almost fabulous East. In a letter written during 20 
the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the idea 
of a crusade against the misbeliever, which later 
popes carried out. He assures the Emperor of 
Germany, whom he was addressing, that he had 
50,000 troops ready for the holy war, whom he 25 
would fain have led in person. This was in the 
year 1074. 

In truth, the most melancholy accounts were 
brought to Europe of the state of things in the 
Holy Land. A rude Turcoman ruled in Jeru-30 
salem; his people insulted there the clergy of 



142 THE TURK 

every profession; they dragged the patriarch by 
the hair along the pavement, and cast him into 
a dungeon, in hopes of a ransom; and disturbed 
from time to time the Latin Mass and office in the 

5 Church of the Resurrection. As to the pilgrims, 
Asia Minor, the country through which they had 
to travel in an age when the sea was not yet safe 
to the voyager, was a scene of foreign incursion 
and internal distraction. They arrived at Jeru- 

losalem exhausted by their sufferings, and some- 
times terminated them by death, before they 
were permitted to kiss the Holy Sepulchre. 



It is commonly said that the Crusades failed 
in their object; that they were nothing else but 

15a lavish expenditure of men and treasure; and 
that the possession of the Holy Places by the 
Turks to this day is a proof of it. Now I will not 
enter here into a very intricate controversy; this 
only will I say, that, if the tribes of the desert, un- 

20 der the leadership of the house of Seljuk, turned 
their faces to the West in the middle of the 
eleventh century; if in forty years they had 
advanced from Khorasan to Jerusalem and the 
neighborhood of Constantinople; and if in con- 

25 sequence they w^ere threatening Europe and 
Christianity; and if, for that reason, it was a 
great object to drive them back or break them 
to pieces; if it were a worthy object of the Cru- 
sades to rescue Europe from this peril and to 



PAST AND PBESENT OF OTTOMANS 143 

reassure the anxious minds of Christian multi- 
tudes; then were the Crusades no failure in 
their issue, for this object was fully accomplished. 
The Seljukian Turks were hurled back upon the 
East, and then broken up, by the hosts of the 5 
Crusaders. The heutenant of Malek Shah, who 
had been established as Sultan of Roum (as Asia 
Minor was called by the Turks) , was driven to an 
obscure town, where his dynasty lasted, indeed, 
but gradually dwindled away. A similar fate 10 
attended the house of Seljuk in other parts of 
the Empire, and internal quarrels increased and 
perpetuated its weakness. Sudden as was its 
rise, as sudden was its fall; till the terrible 
Zingis, descending on the Turkish dynasties, like 15 
an avalanche, cooperated effectually with the 
Crusaders and finished their work; and if Jeru- 
salem was not protected from other enemies, 
at least Constantinople was saved, and Europe 
was placed in security, for three hundred years. 20 

The Past and Present of the Ottomans 

I think it is clear, that, if my account be only 
in the main correct, the Turkish power certainly 
is not a civilized, and is a barbarous power. 
The barbarian lives without principle and with- 
out aim; he does but reflect the successive out- 25 
ward circumstances in which he finds himself, 
and he varies with them. He changes sud- 
denly, when their change is sudden, and is as 



144 THE TURK 

unlike what he was just before, as one fortune 
or external condition is unlike another. He 
moves when he is urged by appetite; else, he 
remains in sloth and inactivity. He lives, and 

5 he dies, and he has done nothing, but leaves the 
world as he found it. And what the individual 
is, such is his whole generation; and as that 
generation, such is the generation before and 
after. No generation can say what it has been 

10 doing ; it has not made the state of things better 
or worse; for retrogression there is hardly room; 
for progress, no sort of material. Now I shall 
show that these characteristics of the barbarian 
are rudimental points, as I may call them, in the 

15 picture of the Turks, as drawn by those who 
have studied them. I shall principally avail 
myself of the information supplied by Mr. Thorn- 
ton and M. Volney, men of name and ability, 
and for various reasons preferable as authorities 

20 to writers of the present day. 

"The Turks," says Mr. Thornton, who, though 
not blind to their shortcomings, is certainly 
favorable to them, "the Turks are of a grave 
and saturnine cast . . . patient of hunger and 

25 privations, capable of enduring the hardships of 
war, but not much inclined to habits of indus- 
try. . . . They prefer apathy and indolence to 
active enjoyments; but when moved by a power- 
ful stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasures 

30 in excess." "The Turk," he says elsewhere, 
" stretched at his ease on the banks of the Bos- 



PAST AND PBESEJSfT OF OTTOMANS 145 

phorus, glides down the stream of existence 
without reflection on the past, and without anx- 
iety for the future. His hfe is one continued 
and unvaried reverie. To his imagination the 
whole universe appears occupied in procuring him 5 
pleasures. . . . Every custom invites to repose, 
and every object inspires an indolent voluptuous- 
ness. Their delight is to recline on soft verdure 
under the shade of trees, and to muse without 
fixing the attention, lulled by the trickling of a lo 
fountain or the murmuring of a rivulet, and in- 
haling through their pipe a gently inebriating 
vapor. Such pleasures, the highest which the 
rich can enjoy, are equally within the reach of 
the artisan or the peasant." 15 

M. Volney corroborates this account of them: 
"Their behavior,'' he says, "is serious, austere, 
and melancholy; they rarely laugh, and the 
gayety of the French appears to them a fit of 
delirium. When they speak, it is with delibera-20 
tion, without gestures and without passion; 
they listen without interrupting you; they are 
silent for whole days together, and they by no 
means pique themselves on supporting conver- 
sation. If they walk, it is always leisurely, and 25 
on business. They have no idea of our trouble- 
some activity, and our walks backwards and 
forwards for amusement. Continually seated, 
they pass whole days smoking, with their legs 
crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost so 
without changing their attitude." Englishmen 



146 THE TURK 

present as great a contrast to the Ottoman as the 
French; as a late Enghsh traveler brings before 
us, apropos of seeing some Turks in quarantine: 
"Certainly," he says, '^ Englishmen are the least 

5 able to wait, and the Turks the most so, of any 
people I have ever seen. To impede an English- 
man's locomotion on a journey, is equivalent to 
stopping the circulation of his blood; to disturb 
the repose of a Turk on his, is to reawaken him 

10 to a painful sense of the miseries of life. The 
one nation at rest is as much tormented as Pro- 
metheus, chained to his rock, with the vulture 
feeding on him ; the other in motion is as uncom- 
fortable as Ixion tied to his ever-moving wheel." ^ 

15 However, the barbarian, when roused to action, 
is a very different being from the barbarian 
at rest. "The Turk," says Mr. Thornton, "is 
usually placid, hypochondriac, and unimpas- 
sioned; but, when the customary sedateness of 

20 his temper is ruffled, his passions . . . are furi- 
ous and uncontrollable. The individual seems 
possessed with all the ungovernable fury of a 
multitude; and all ties, all attachments, all 
natural and moral obligations, are forgotten or 

25 despised, till his rage subsides." A similar re- 
mark is made by a writer of the day : " The Turk 
on horseback has no resemblance to the Turk 
reclining on his carpet. He there assumes a 
vigor, and displays a dexterity, which few 

30 Europeans would be capable of emulating; no 

^ Formby's Visit, p. 70. 



PAST AND PRESENT OF OTTOMANS 147 

horsemen surpass the Turks; and, with all the 
indolence of which they are accused, no people 
are more fond of the violent exercise of ricUng." 

So was it with their ancestors, the Tartars; 
now dosing on their horses or their wagons, now 5 
galloping over the plains from morning to night. 
However, these successive phases of Turkish 
character, as reported by travelers, have seemed 
to readers as inconsistencies in their reports; 
Thornton accepts the inconsistency. "The na-io 
tional character of the Turks," he says, "is a 
composition of contradictory qualities. We find 
them brave and pusillanimous; gentle and 
ferocious; resolute and inconstant; active and 
indolent; fastidiously abstemious, and indis-is 
criminately indulgent. The great are alternately 
haughty and humble, arrogant and cringing, 
liberal and sordid." What is this but to say in 
one word that we find them barbarians ? 

According to these distinct moods or phases 20 
of character, they will leave very various impres- 
sions of themselves on the minds of successive 
beholders. A traveler finds them in their ordi- 
nary state in repose and serenity ; he is surprised 
and startled to find them so different from what 25 
he imagined; he admires and extols them, and 
inveighs against the prejudice which has slan- 
dered them to the European w^orld. He finds them 
mild and patient, tender to the brute creation, as 
becomes the children of a Tartar shepherd, kind 30 
^ Bell's Geography. 



148 THE TURK 

and hospitable, self-possessed and dignified, the 
lowest classes sociable with each other, and the 
children gamesome. It is true; they are as noble 
as the lion of the desert, and as gentle and as 

5 playful as the fireside cat. Our traveler observes 
all this ; ^ and seems to forget that from the 
humblest to the highest of the feline tribe, from 
the cat to the lion, the most wanton and ty- 
rannical cruelty alternates with qualities more 

10 engaging or more elevated. Other barbarous 
tribes also have their innocent aspects — from 
the Scythians in the classical poets and historians 
down to the Lewchoo islanders in the pages of 
Basil Hall. 

15 But whatever be the natural excellences of 
the Turks, progressive they are not. This Sir 
Charles Fellows seems to allow: "My intimacy, 
with the character of the Turks," he says, " which 
has led me to think so highly of their moral ex- 

20cellence, has not given me the same favorable 
impression of the development of their mental 
powders. Their refinement is of manners and 
affections; there is little cultivation or activity 
of mind among them." This admission implies 

25 a great deal, and brings us to a fresh considera- 
tion. Observe, they were in the eighth century 
of their political existence when Thornton and 
Volney lived among them, and these authors 
report of them as follows: "Their buildings," 

30 says Thornton, "are heavy in their proportions, 
' Vid. Sir Charles Fellows' Asia Minor. 



PAST AND PRESEXT OF OTTOMANS 149 

bad in detail, both in taste and execution, fan- 
tastic in decoration, and destitute of genius. 
Their cities are not decorated with public monu- 
ments, whose object is to enliven or to embellish." 
Their religion forbids them every sort of paint- 5 
ing, sculpture, or engraving; thus the fine arts 
cannot exist among them. They have no music 
but vocal; and know of no accompaniment ex- 
cept a bass of one note like that of the bagpipe. 
Their singing is in a great measure recitative, lO 
with little variation of note. They have scarcely 
any notion of medicine or surgery; and they do 
not allow of anatomy. As to science, the tele- 
scope, the microscope, the electric battery, are 
unknown, except as playthings. The compass 15 
is not universally employed in their navy, nor 
are its common purposes thoroughly understood. 
Navigation, astronomy, geography, chemistry, 
are either not known, or practiced only on anti- 
quated and exploded principles. As to their 20 
civil and criminal codes of law, these are unalter- 
ably fixed in the Koran. . . . 

Compare the Rome of Junius Brutus to the 
Rome of Constantine, 800 years afterwards. In 
each of these polities there was a continuous 25 
progression, and the end was unlike the begin- 
ning ; but the Turks, except that they have gained 
the faculty of political union, are pretty much 
what they were when they crossed the Jaxartes 
and Oxus. Again, at the time of Togrul Beg, the 30 
Greek schism also took place; now from Michael 



150 THE TURK 

Cerularius, in 1054, to Anthimus, in 1853, Patri- 
archs of Constantinople, eight centuries have 
passed of religious deadness and insensibility: a 
longer time has passed in China of a similar 
5 political inertness: yet China has preserved at 
least the civilization, and Greece the ecclesiastical 
science, with which they respectively passed into 
their long sleep; but the Turks of this day are 
still in the less than infancy of art, literature, 
10 philosophy, and general knowledge; and we may 
fairly conclude that, if they have not learned 
the very alphabet of science in eight hundred 
years, they are not likely to set to work on it in 
the nine hundredth. 



15 It is true that in the last quarter of a century 
efforts have been made by the government of 
Constantinople to innovate on the existing con- 
dition of its people; and it has addressed itself 
in the first instance to certain details of daily 

20 Turkish life. We must take it for granted that it 
began with such changes as were easiest ; if so, its 
failure in these small matters suggests how little 
ground there is for hope of success in other 
advances more important and difficult. Every 

25 one knows that in the details of dress, carriage, 
and general manners, the Turks are very differ- 
ent from Europeans : so different, and so con- 
sistently different, that the contrariety would 
seem to arise from some difference of essential 



PAST AND PRESENT OF OTTOMANS 151 

principle. "This dissimilitude," says Mr. Thorn- 
ton, "which pervades the whole of their habits, 
is so general, even in things of apparent insig- 
nificance, as almost to indicate design rather than 
accident. ..." 5 

To learn from others, you must entertain a 
respect for them; no one listens to those whom 
he contemns. Christian nations make progress 
in secular matters, because they are aware they 
have many things to learn, and do not mind from lo 
whom they learn them, so that he be able to teach. 
It is true that Christianity, as well as Mahome- 
tanism, which imitated it, has its visible polity, 
and its universal rule, and its especial preroga- 
tives and powers and lessons, for its disciples. 1.5 
But, with a Divine wisdom, and contrary to its 
human copyist, it has carefully guarded (if I 
may use the expression) against extending its 
revelations to any point which would blunt the 
keenness of human research or the activity of 20 
human toil. It has taken those matters for its 
field in which the human mind, left to itself, 
could not profitably exercise itself, or progress, 
if it would; it has confined its revelations to the 
province of theology, only indirectly touching 25 
on other departments of knowledge, so far as 
theological truth accidentally affects them; and 
it has shown an equally remarkable care in pre- 
venting the introduction of the spirit of caste 
or race into its constitution or administration. 30 
Pure nationalism it abhors; its authoritative 



152 THE TURK 

documents pointedly ignore the distinction of 
Jew and Gentile, and warn us that the first often 
becomes the last; while its subsequent history 
has illustrated this great principle, by its awful, 

sand absolute, and inscrutable, and irreversible 
passage from country to country, as its territory 
and its home. Such, then, it has been in the 
Divine counsels, and such, too, as realized in fact; 
but man has ways of his own, and, even before 

10 its introduction into the world, the inspired 
announcements, which preceded it, were distorted 
by the people to whom they were given, to min- 
ister to views of a very different kind. The 
secularized Jews, relying on the supernatural 

15 favors locally and temporally bestowed on them- 
selves, fell into the error of supposing that a con- 
quest of the earth was reserved for some mighty 
warrior of their own race, and that, in compen- 
sation of the reverses which befell them, they 

20 were to become an imperial nation. 

What a contrast is presented to us by these 
different ideas of a universal empire ! The dis- 
tinctions of race are indelible; a Jew cannot 
become a Greek, or a Greek a Jew; birth is an 

25 event of past time; according to the Judaizers, 
their nation, as a nation, was ever to be domi- 
nant; and all other nations, as such, were in- 
ferior and subject. What was the necessary 
consequence? There is nothing men more pride 

30 themselves on than birth, for this very reason, 
that it is irrevocable; it can neither be given to 



PAST AND PRESENT OF OTTOMANS 153 

those who have it not, nor taken away from 
those who have. The Almighty can do anything 
which admits of doing ; He can compensate every 
evil; but a Greek poet says that there is one 
thing impossible to Him — to undo what is 5 
done. Without throwing the thought into a 
shape which borders on the profane, we may see 
in it the reason why the idea of national power 
was so dear and so dangerous to the Jew. It was 
his consciousness of inalienable superiority thatio 
led him to regard Roman and Greek, Syrian and 
Egyptian, with ineffable arrogance and scorn. 
Christians, too, are accustomed to think of those 
who are not Christians as their inferiors ; but the 
conviction which possesses them, that they have 15 
what others have not, is obviously not open to 
the temptation which nationalism presents. Ac- 
cording to their own faith, there is no insuperable 
gulf between themselves and the rest of mankind; 
there is not a being in the whole world but is 20 
invited by their religion to occupy the same 
position as themselves, and, did he come, would 
stand on their very level, as if he had ever been 
there. Such accessions to their body they con- 
tinually receive, and they are bound under ob-25 
ligation of duty to promote them. They never 
can pronounce of any one, now external to them, 
that he will not some day be among them; they 
never can pronounce of themselves that, though 
they are now within, they may not some day 30 
be found outside, the Divine polity. Such are 



154 THE TURK 

the sentiments inculcated by Christianity, even 
in the contemplation of the very superiority 
which it imparts; even there it is a principle, not 
of repulsion between man and man, but of good 

5 fellowship; but as to subjects of secular knowl- 
edge, since here it does not arrogate any superi- 
ority at all, it has in fact no tendency whatever 
to center its disciple's contemplation on himself, 
or to alienate him from his kind. He readily 

10 acknowledges and defers to the superiority in 
art or science of those, if so be, who are unhap- 
pily enemies to Christianity. He admits the 
principle of progress on all matters of knowledge 
and conduct on which the Creator has not decided 

15 the truth already by revealing it ; and he is at 
all times ready to learn, in those merely secular 
matters, from those who can teach him best. 
Thus it is that Christianity, even negatively, and 
without contemplating its positive influences, is 

20 the religion of civilization. 



III. UNIVERSITIES 

What is a University? 

If I were asked to describe as briefly and 
popularly as I could, what a University was, I 
should draw my answer from its ancient desig- 
nation of a Studium Generale, or "School of 
Universal Learning." This description implies 5 
the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one 
spot — from all parts; else, how will you find 
professors and students for every department of 
knowledge? and in one spot; else, how can there 
be any school at all ? Accordingly, in its simple lo 
and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge 
of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners 
from every quarter. Many things are requisite 
to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this 
description ; but such as this a University seems 15 
to be in its essence, a place for the communi- 
cation and circulation of thought, by means of 
personal intercourse, through a wide extent of 
country. 

Mutual education, in a large sense of the word, 20 
is one of the great and incessant occupations of 
human society, carried on partly with set pur- 
pose, and partly not. One generation forms 
155 



156 UNIVERSITIES 

another; and the existing generation is ever act- 
ing and reacting upon itself in the persons of its 
individual members. Now, in this process, books, 
I need scarcely say, that is, the litera scripta, 

5 are one special instrument. It is true; and em- 
phatically so in this age. Considering the pro- 
digious powers of the press, and how they are 
developed at this time in the never intermitting 
issue of periodicals, tracts, pamphlets, works in 

10 series, and light literature, we must allow there 
never was a time which promised fairer for dis- 
pensing with every other means of information 
and instruction. What can we want more, you 
will say, for the intellectual education of the 

15 whole man, and for every man, Mian so exuberant 
and diversified and persistent a promulgation 
of all kinds of knowledge ? Why, you will ask, 
need we go up to knowledge, when knowledge 
comes down to us ? The Sibyl wrote her prophe- 

20cies upon the leaves of the forest, and wasted 
them; but here such careless profusion might be 
prudently indulged, for it can be afforded with- 
out loss, in consequence of the almost fabulous 
fecundity of the instrument which these latter 

25 ages have invented. We have sermons in stones, 
and books in the running brooks; works larger 
and more comprehensive than those which have 
gained for ancients an immortality, issue forth 
every morning, and are projected onwards to 

30 the ends of the earth at the rate of hundreds of 
miles a day. Our seats are strewed, our pave- 



WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 157 

merits are powdered, with swarms of little tracts ; 
and the very bricks of our city walls preach wis- 
dom, by informing us by their placards where we 
can at once cheaply purchase it. 

I allow all this, and much more; such cer- 5 
tainly is our popular education, and its effects are 
remarkable. Nevertheless, after all, even in this 
age, whenever men are really serious about get- 
ting what, in the language of trade, is called " a 
good article," when they aim at something pre- 10 
cise, something refined, something really lumi- 
nous, something really large, something choice, 
they go to another market ; they avail themselves, 
in some shape or other, of the rival method, the 
ancient method, of oral instruction, of present 15 
communication between man and man, of teachers 
instead of learning, of the personal influence of a 
master, and the humble initiation of a disciple, 
and, in consequence, of great centers of pilgrim- 
age and throng, which such a method of edu- 20 
cation necessarily involves. 

If the actions of men may be taken as any test 
of their convictions, then we have reason for say- 
ing this, viz. : that the province and the ines- 
timable benefit of the litera scripta is that of 25 
being a record of truth, and an authority of appeal, 
and an instrument of teaching in the hands of a 
teacher; but that, if we wish to become exact and 
fully furnished in any branch of knowledge which 
is diversified and complicated, we must consult 30 
the living man and listen to his living voice. . . . 



158 UNIVEBSITIES 

No book can convey the special spirit and deli- 
cate peculiarities of its subject with that rapid- 
ity and certainty which attend on the sympathy 
of mind with mind, through the eyes, the look, 
5 the accent, and the manner, in casual expressions 
thrown off at the moment, and the unstudied 
turns of familiar conversation. But I am already 
dwelling too long on what is but an incidental 
portion of my main subject. Whatever be the 
10 cause, the fact is undeniable. The general prin- 
ciples of any study you may learn by books at 
home; but the detail, the color, the tone, the 
air, the life which makes it live in us, you must 
catch all these from those in whom it lives al- 
io ready. You must imitate the student in French 
or Germian, who is not content with his gram- 
mar, but goes to Paris or Dresden: you must 
take example from the young artist, who aspires 
to visit the great Masters in Florence and in 
20 Rome. Till we have discovered some intellect- 
ual daguerreotype, which takes off the course of 
thought, and the form, lineaments, and features 
of truth, as completely and minutely, as the 
optical instrument reproduces the sensible ob- 
25Ject, we must come to the teachers of wisdom 
to learn wisdom, we must repair to the fountain, 
and drink there. Portions of it may go from 
thence to the ends of the earth by means of 
books; but the fullness is in one place alone. It 
30 is in such assemblages and congregations of in- 
tellect that books themselves, the masterpieces 



WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY ? 159 

of human genius, are written, or at least origi- 
nated. 

The principle on which I have been insisting 
is so obvious, and instances in point are so ready, 
that I should think it tiresome to proceed with 5 
the subject, except that one or two illustrations 
may serve to explain my own language about it, 
which may not have done justice to the doctrine 
which it has been intended to enforce. 

For instance, the polished manners and high- 10 
bred bearing which are so difficult of attainment, 
and so strictly personal when attained, — which 
are so much admired in society, from society 
are acquired. All that goes to constitute a gen- 
tleman, — the carriage, gait, address, gestures, 15 
voice; the ease, the self-possession, the courtesy, 
the power of conversing, the talent of not offend- 
ing; the lofty principle, the delicacy of thought, 
the happiness of expression, the taste and pro- 
priety, the generosity and forbearance, the can- 20 
dor and consideration, the openness of hand 
— these qualities, some of them come by nature, 
some of them may be found in any rank, some of 
them are a direct precept of Christianity; but 
the full assemblage of them, bound up in the 25 
unity of an individual character, do we expect 
they can be learned from books? are they not 
necessarily acquired, where they are to be found, 
in high society? The very nature of the case 
leads us to say so ; you cannot fence without an 30 
antagonist, nor challenge all comers in disputa- 



160 UNIVERSITIES 

tion before j^ou have supported a thesis; and in 
Hke manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn 
to converse till you have the world to converse 
with; you cannot unlearn your natural bashful- 

sness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other be- 
setting deformity, till you serve your time in 
some school of manners. Well, and is it not so 
in matter of fact? The metropolis, the court, 
the great houses of the land, are the centers to 

10 which at stated times the country comes up, as to 
shrines of refinement and good taste; and then 
in due time the country goes back again home, 
enriched with a portion of the social accomplish- 
ments, which those very visits serve to call out 

15 and heighten in the gracious dispensers of them. 
We are unable to conceive how the "gentleman- 
like" can otherwise be maintained; and main- 
tained in this way it is. . . . 

Religious teaching itself affords us an illus- 

2otration of our subject to a certain point. It 
does not indeed seat itself merely in centers of 
the world; this is impossible from the nature of 
the case. It is intended for the many not the 
few; its subject-matter is truth necessary for us, 

25 not truth recondite and rare; but it concurs in 
the principle of a University so far as this, that 
its great instrument, or rather organ, has ever 
been that which nature prescribes in all education, 
the personal presence of a teacher, or, in theo- 

30 logical language, Oral Tradition. It is the living 
voice, the breathing form, the expressive counte- 



WHAT IS A UNIVEllSITYf 161 

nance, which preaches, which catechises. Truth, 
a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into 
the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears, 
through his affections, imagination, and reason; 
it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there 5 
in perpetuity, by propounding and repeating it, 
by questioning and requestioning, by correcting 
and explaining, by progressing and then recurring 
to first principles, by all those ways which are 
implied in the word "catechising." In the first 10 
ages, it was a work of long time; months, some- 
times years, were devoted to the arduous task 
of disabusing the mind of the incipient Christian 
of its pagan errors, and of molding it upon the 
Christian faith. The Scriptures indeed were at 15 
hand for the study of those who could avail 
themselves of them; but St. Irenseus does not 
hesitate to speak of whole races, who had been 
converted to Christianity, without being able to 
read them. To be unable to read or write was in 20 
those times no evidence of want of learning : the 
hermits of the deserts were, in this sense of the 
word, illiterate; yet the great St. Anthony, 
though he knew not letters, was a match in dis- 
putation for the learned philosophers who came 25 
to try him. Didymus again, the great Alex- 
andrian theologian, was blind. The ancient dis- 
cipline, called the Disciplina Arcani, involved the 
same principle. The more sacred doctrines of 
Revelation were not committed to books but 30 
passed on by successive tradition. The teach- 



162 UNIVERSITIES 

ing on the Blessed Trinity, and the Eucharist 
appears to have been so handed down for some 
hundred years; and when at length reduced to 
writing, it has filled many folios, yet has not been 
5 exhausted. 

But I have said more than enough in illustra- 
tion; end as I began — a University is a place 
of concourse, whither students come from every 
quarter for every kind of knowledge. You can- 
10 not have the best of every kind everywhere ; you 
must go to some great city or emporium for it. 
There you have all the choicest productions 
of nature and art all together, which you find 
each in its own separate place elsewhere. All 
15 the riches of the land, and of the earth, are car- 
ried up thither; there are the best markets, and 
there the best workmen. It is the center of 
trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire 
of rival talents, and the standard of things rare 
20 and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries 
of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful 
voices and performers of transcendent skill. It 
is the place for great preachers, great orators, 
great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of 
25 things, greatness and unity go together; excel- 
lence implies a center. And such, for the third 
or fourth time, is a University; I hope I do not 
weary out the reader by repeating it. It is the 
. place to which a thousand schools make con- 
so tributions ; in which the intellect may safely 
range and speculate, sure to find its equal in 



UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS 163 

some antagonist activity, and its judge in the 
tribunal of truth. It is a place where inquiry 
is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and 
perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and 
error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind, 5 
and knowledge with knowledge. It is the place 
where the professor becomes eloquent, and is a 
missionary and a preacher, displaying his science 
in its most complete and most winning form, 
pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, and lO 
lighting up his own love of it in the breasts of 
his hearers. It is the place where the catechist 
makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the 
truth day by day into the ready memory, and 
wedging and tightening it into the expandingi5 
reason. It is a place which wins the admiration 
of the young by its celebrity, kindles the affec- 
tions of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets 
the fidelity of the old by its associations. It is a 
seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of 20 
the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation. 
It is this and a great deal more, and demands a 
somewhat better head and hand than mine to 
describe it well. 

University Life 

ATHENS 

It has been my desire, were I able, to bring 25 
before the reader what Athens may have been, 
viewed as what we have since called a University; 



164 UNIVERSITIES 

and to do this, not with any purpose of writing 
a panegyric on a heathen city, or of denying 
its many deformities, or of conceahng what was 
morally base in what was intellectually great, but 

5 just the contrary, of representing as they really 
were ; so far, that is, as to enable him to see what 
a University is, in the very constitution of society 
and in its own idea, what is its nature and object, 
and what its needs of aid and support external to 

10 itself to complete that nature and to secure that 
object. 

So now let us fancy our Scythian, or Armenian, 
or African, or Italian, or Gallic student, after 
tossing on the Saronic waves, which would be his 

15 more ordinary course to Athens, at last casting 
anchor at Piraeus. He is of any condition or rank 
of life you please, and may be made to order, 
from a prince to a peasant. Perhaps he is some 
Cleanthes, who has been a boxer in the public 

20 games. How did it ever cross his brain to betake 
himself to Athens in search of wisdom ? or, if he 
came thither by accident, how did the love of it 
ever touch his heart ? But so it was, to Athens he 
came with three drachms in his girdle, and he got 

25 his livelihood by drawing water, carrying loads, 
and the like servile occupations. He attached 
himself, of all philosophers, to Zeno.the Stoic, — 
to Zeno, the most high-minded, the most haughty 
of speculators; and out of his daily earnings the 

30 poor scholar brought his master the daily sum of 
an obolus, in payment for attending his lectures. 



UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS 165 

Such progress did he make, that on Zeno's death 
he actually was his successor in his school; and, 
if my memory does not play me false, he is the 
author of a hymn to the Supreme Being, which is 
one of the noblest effusions of the kind in classical 5 
poetry. Yet, even when he was the head of a 
school, he continued in his illiberal toil as if he 
had been a monk ; and, it is said, that once, when 
the wind took his pallium, and blew it aside, he 
was discovered to have no other garment at all — lo 
something like the German student who came up 
to Heidelberg with nothing upon him but a great 
coat and a pair of pistols. 

Or it is another disciple of the Porch — Stoic 
by nature, earlier than by profession — who is 15 
entering the city; but in what different fashion 
he comes ! It is no other than Marcus, Emperor 
of Rome and philosopher. Professors long since 
were summoned from Athens for his service, when 
he was a youth, and now he comes, after his vie- 20 
tories in the battlefield, to make his acknowledg- 
ments at the end of life, to the city of wisdom, and 
to submit himself to an initiation into the Eleusin- 
ian mysteries. 

Or it is a young man of great promise as an 25 
orator, were it not for his weakness of chest, which 
renders it necessary that he should acquire the art 
of speaking without over-exertion, and should 
adopt a delivery sufficient for the display of his 
rhetorical talents on the one hand, yet merciful 30 
to his physical resources on the other. He is 



166 UNIVERSITIES 

called Cicero; he will stop but a short time, and 
will pass over to Asia Minor and its cities, before 
he returns to continue a career which will render 
his name immortal; and he will like his short 

5 sojourn at Athens so well, that he will take good 
care to send his son thither at an earlier age than 
he visited it himself. 

But see where comes from Alexandria (for we 
need not be very solicitous about anachronisms), 

10 a young man from twenty to twenty-two, who 
has narrowly escaped drowning on his voyage, 
and is to remain at Athens as many as eight or 
ten years, yet in the course of that time will not 
learn a line of Latin, thinking it enough to be- 

15 come accomplished in Greek composition, and in 
that he will succeed. He is a grave person, and 
difficult to make out; some say he is a Christian, 
something or other in the Christian line his father 
is for certain. His name is Gregory, he is by 

20 country a Cappadocian, and will in time become 
preeminently a theologian, and one of the prin- 
cipal Doctors of the Greek Church. 

Or it is one Horace, a youth of low stature and 
black hair, whose father has given him an edu- 

25 cation at Rome above his rank in life, and now is 
sending him to finish it at Athens; he is said to 
have a turn for poetry : a hero he is not, and it 
were well if he knew it; but he is caught by the 
enthusiasm of the hour, and goes off campaigning 

30 with Brutus and Cassius, and will leave his shield 
behind him on the field of Philippi. 



UNIVEBSITT LIFE: ATHENS 167 

Or it is a mere boy of fifteen : his name Euna- 
pius; though the voyage was not long, sea sick- 
ness, or confinement, or bad Uving on board the 
vessel, threw him into a fever, and, when the 
passengers landed in the evening at Piraeus, he 5 
could not stand. His countrymen w^ho accom- 
panied him, took him up among them and carried 
him to the house of the great teacher of the day, 
Pro2eresius, who was a friend of the captain's, 
and whose fame it was which drew the enthusi-io 
astic youth to Athens. His companions under- 
stand the sort of place they are in, and, with the 
license of academic students, they break into the 
philosopher's house, though he appears to have 
retired for the night, and proceed to make them- 15 
selves free of it, with an absence of ceremony, 
which is only not impudence, because Proseresius 
takes it so easily. Strange introduction for our 
stranger to a seat of learning, but not out of keep- 
ing with Athens; for what could you expect of a 20 
place where there was a mob of youths and not 
even the pretense of control; where the poorer 
lived any how, and got on as they could, and the 
teachers themselves had no protection from the 
humors and caprices of the students who filled 25 
their lecture halls ? However, as to this Euna- 
pius, Proseresius took a fancy to the boy, and told 
him curious stories about Athenian life. He 
himself had come up to the University with one 
Hephsestion, and they were even worse off than 30 
Cleanthes the Stoic; for they had only one cloak 



168 UNIVERSITIES 

between them, and nothing whatever besides, 
except some old bedding; so when Proaeresius 
went abroad, Hephaestion lay in bed, and prac- 
ticed himself in oratory; and then Hephsestion 

5 put on the cloak, and Proseresius crept under the 
coverlet. At another time there was so fierce 
a feud between what would be called " town and 
gown" in an English University, that the Pro- 
fessors did not dare lecture in public, for fear of 

10 ill treatment. 

But a freshman like Eunapius soon got experi- 
ence for himself of the ways and manners preva- 
lent in Athens. Such a one as he had hardly 
entered the city, when he was caught hold of by 

15 a party of the academic youth, who proceeded to 
practice on his awkwardness and his ignorance. 
At first sight one wonders at their childishness; 
but the like conduct obtained in the mediaeval 
Universities; and not many months have passed 

20 away since the journals have told us of sober 
Englishmen, given to matter-of-fact calculations, 
and to the anxieties of money making, pelting 
each other with snowballs on their own sacred 
territory, and defying the magistracy, when they 

25 would interfere with their privileges of becom- 
ing boys. So I suppose we must attribute it to 
something or other in human nature. Meanwhile, 
there stands the newcomer, surrounded by a circle 
of his new associates, who forthwith proceed to 

30 frighten, and to banter, and to make a fool of him, 
to the extent of their wit. Some address him with 



UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS 169 

mock politeness, others with fierceness; and so 
they conduct him in solemn procession across the 
Agora to the Baths; and as they approach, they 
dance about him like madmen. But this was to 
be the end of his trial, for the Bath was a sort of 5 
initiation; he thereupon received the pallium, or 
University gown, and was suffered by his tor- 
mentors to depart in peace. One alone is re- 
corded as having been exempted from this perse- 
cution; it was a youth graver and loftier thanio 
even St. Gregory himself : but it was not from his 
force of character, but at the instance of Gregory, 
that he escaped. Gregory was his bosom friend, 
and was ready in Athens to shelter him when 
he came. It was another Saint and Doctor; the 15 
great Basil, then, (it would appear,) as Gregory, 
but a catechumen of the Church. 

But to return to our freshman. His troubles 
are not at an end, though he has got his gown 
upon him. Where is he to lodge? whom is he 20 
to attend? He finds himself seized, before he 
well knows where he is, by another party of men 
or three or four parties at once, like foreign port- 
ers at a landing, who seize on the baggage of the 
perplexed stranger, and thrust half a dozen cards 25 
into his unwilling hands. Our youth is plied by 
the hangers-on of professor this, or sophist that, 
each of whom wishes the fame or the profit of 
having a houseful. We will say that he escapes 
from their hands, — but then he will have to 30 
choose for himself where he will put up ; and, to 



170 UNIVERSITIES 

tell the truth, with all the praise I have already 
given, and the praise I shall have to give, to 
the city of mind, nevertheless, between ourselves, 
the brick and wood which formed it, the actual 

5 tenements, where flesh and blood had to lodge 
(always excepting the mansions of great men of 
the place), do not seem to have been much better 
than those of Greek or Turkish tow^ns, which are 
at this moment a topic of interest and ridicule 

10 in the public prints. A lively picture has lately 
been set before us of Gallipoli. Take, says the 
writer,^ a multitude of the dilapidated outhouses 
found in farm-yards in England, of the rickety 
old wooden tenements, the cracked, shutterless 

15 structures of planks and tiles, the sheds and stalls, 
which our bye lanes, or fish-markets, or river- 
sides can supply; tumble them down on the 
declivity of a bare bald hill; let the spaces be- 
tween house and house, thus accidentally deter- 

20 mined, be understood to form streets, winding of 
course for no reason, and with no meaning, up and 
down the town; the roadway always narrow, the 
breadth never uniform, the separate houses bulg- 
ing or retiring below, as circumstances may have 

25 determined, and leaning forward till they meet 
overhead — and you have a good idea of Gal- 
lipoli. I question w^hether this picture would 
not nearly correspond to the special seat of the 
Muses in ancient times. Learned writers assure 

sous distinctly that the houses of Athens were for 

^Mr. Russell's Letters in the Times newspaper (1854). 



UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS 17 1 

the most part small and mean; that the streets 
were crooked and narrow; that the upper stories 
projected over the roadway; and that staircases, 
balustrades, and doors that opened outwards 
obstructed it — a remarkable coincidence of 5 
description. I do not doubt at all, though his- 
tory is silent, that that roadway was jolting to 
carriages, and all but impassable; and that it 
was traversed by drains, as freely as any Turkish 
town now. Athens seems in these respects to 10 
have been below the average cities of its time. 
" A stranger," says an ancient, " might doubt, on 
the sudden view, if really he saw Athens." 

I grant all this, and much more, if you will; 
but, recollect, Athens was the home of the intel-15 
lectual and beautiful; not of low mechanical 
contrivances and material organization. Why 
stop within your lodgings counting the rents in 
your wall or the holes in your tiling, when nature 
and art call you away? You must put up with 20 
such a chamber, and a table, and a stool, and a 
sleeping board, anywhere else in the three con- 
tinents; one place does not differ from another 
indoors; your magalia in Africa, or your grottoes 
in Syria are not perfection. I suppose you did 25 
not come to Athens to swarm up a ladder, or to 
grope about a closet : you came to see and to 
hear, what hear and see you could not elsewhere. 
What food for the intellect is it possible to pro- 
cure indoors, that you stay there looking about 30 
you ? do you think to read there ? where are your 



172 UNIVERSITIES 

books? do you expect to purchase books at 
Athens — you are much out in your calculations. 
True it is, we at this day, who live in the nine- 
teenth century, have the books of Greece as a 

5 perpetual memorial ; and copies there have been, 
since the time that they were written; but you 
need not go to Athens to procure them, nor would 
you find them in Athens. Strange to say, strange 
to the nineteenth century, that in the age of Plato 

10 and Thucydides, there was not, it is said, a book- 
shop in the whole place : nor was the book trade 
in existence till the very time of Augustus. 
Libraries, I suspect, were the bright invention of 
Attains or the Ptolemies; ^ I doubt whether 

15 Athens had a library till the reign of Hadrian. 
It was what the student gazed on, what he heard, 
what he caught by the magic of sympathy, not 
what he read, which was the education furnished 
by Athens. 

20 He leaves his narrow lodging early in the 
morning; and not till night, if even then, will he 
return. It is but a crib or kennel, in which 
he sleeps when the weather is inclement or the 
ground damp; in no respect a home. And he 

25 goes out of doors, not to read the day's news- 
paper, or to buy the gay shilling volume, but to 
imbibe the invisible atmosphere of genius, and 

^ I do not go into controversy on the subject, for which the 
reader must have recourse to Lipsius, Morhof , Boeckh, Bekker, 
etc. ; and this of course apphes to whatever historical matter I 
introduce, or shall introduce. 



UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS 173 

to learn by heart the oral traditions of taste. 
Out he goes; and, leaving the tumble-down 
town behind him, he mounts the Acropolis to 
the right, or he turns to the Areopagus on the left. 
He goes to the Parthenon to study the sculptures 5 
of Phidias; to the temple of the Dioscuri to see 
the paintings of Polygnotus. We indeed take 
our Sophocles or ^Eschylus out of our coat pocket; 
but, if our sojourner at Athens would understand 
how a tragic poet can write, he must betake 10 
himself to the theater on the south, and see and 
hear the drama literally in action. Or let him go 
westward to the Agora, and there he will hear 
Lysias or Andocides pleading, or Demosthenes 
haranguing. He goes farther west still, along the 15 
shade of those noble planes, which Cimon has 
planted there; and he looks around him at the 
statues and porticoes and vestibules, each by it- 
self a work of genius and skill, enough to be the 
making of another city. He passes through the 20 
city gate, and then he is at the famous Ceramicus; 
here are the tombs of the mighty dead ; and here, 
we will suppose, is Pericles himself, the most ele- 
vated, the most thrilling of orators, converting a 
funeral oration over the slain into a philosophical 25 
panegyric of the living. 

Onwards he proceeds still; and now he has 
come to that still more celebrated Academe, 
which has bestowed its own name on Universities 
down to this day ; and there he sees a sight which 30 
will be graven on his memory till he dies. Many 



174 UNIVERSITIES 

are the beauties of the place, the groves, and the 
statues, and the temple, and the stream of the 
Cephissus flowing by; many are the lessons 
which will be taught him day after day by teacher 
5 or by companion ; but his eye is just now arrested 
by one object; it is the very presence of Plato. 
He does not hear a word that he says; he does 
not care to hear; he asks neither for discourse 
nor disputation; what he sees is a whole, com- 

10 plete in itself, not to be increased by addition, and 
greater than anything else. It will be a point in 
the history of his life; a stay for his memory to 
rest on, a burning thought in his heart, a bond of 
union with men of like mind, ever afterwards. 

15 Such is the spell which the living man exerts on 
his fellows, for good or for evil. How nature 
impels us to lean upon others, making virtue, or 
genius, or name, the qualification for our doing 
so ! A Spaniard is said to have traveled to Italy, 

20 simply to see Livy ; he had his fill of gazing, and 
then went back again home. Had our young 
stranger got nothing by his voyage but the sight 
of the breathing and moving Plato, had he en- 
tered no lecture room to hear, no gymnasium to 

25 converse, he had got some measure of education, 
and something to tell of to his grandchildren. 

But Plato is not the only sage, nor the sight of 
him the only lesson to be learned in this won- 
derful suburb. It is the region and the realm 

30 of philosophy. Colleges were the inventions of 
many centuries later; and they imply a sort of 



UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS 175 

cloistered life, or at least a life of rule, scarcely 
natural to an Athenian. It was the boast of the 
philosophic statesman of Athens, that his coun- 
trymen achieved by the mere force of nature and 
the love of the noble and the great, what other 5 
people aimed at by laborious discipline; and all 
who came among them were submitted to the 
same method of education. We have traced our 
student on his wanderings from the Acropolis to 
the Sacred Way; and now he is in the region of 10 
the schools. No awful arch, no window of many- 
colored lights marks the seats of learning there 
or elsewhere; philosophy lives out of doors. No 
close atmosphere oppresses the brain or inflames 
the eyelid; no long session stiffens the limbs. 15 
Epicurus is reclining in his garden ; Zeno looks 
like a divinity in his porch ; the restless Aristotle, 
on the other side of the city, as if in antagonism 
to Plato, is walking his pupils off their legs in his 
Lyceum by the Ilyssus. Our student has deter- 20 
mined on entering himself as a disciple of Theo- 
phrastus, a teacher of marvelous popularity, who 
has brought together two thousand pupils from 
all parts of the world. He himself is of Lesbos; 
for masters, as well as students, come hither from 25 
all regions of the earth — as befits a University. 
How could Athens have collected hearers in such 
numbers, unless she had selected teachers of such 
power? it was the range of territory, which the 
notion of a University implies, which furnished 30 
both the quantity of the one and the quality of 



176 UNIVERSITIES 

the other. Anaxagoras was from Ionia, Carneades 
from Africa, Zeno from Cyprus, Protagoras from 
Thrace, and Gorgias from Sicily. Andromachus 
was a Syrian, Proseresius an Armenian, Hilarius 

5 a Bithynian, Phihscus a Thessahan, Hadrian a 
Syrian. Rome is celebrated for her liberality in 
civil matters; Athens was as liberal in intellect- 
ual. There was no narrow jealousy, directed 
against a Professor, because he was not an Athe- 

lOnian; genius and talent were the qualifications; 
and to bring them to Athens, was to do homage 
to it as a University. There was a brotherhood 
and a citizenship of mind. 

Mind came first, and was the foundation of the 

15 academical polity; but it soon brought along with 
it, and gathered round itself, the gifts of fortune 
and the prizes of life. As time went on, wisdom 
was not always sentenced to the bare cloak of 
Cleanthes; but, beginning in rags, it ended in 

20 fine linen. The Professors became honorable 
and rich; and the students ranged themselves 
under their names, and were proud of calling 
themselves their countrymen. The University 
was divided into four great nations, as the medise- 

25val antiquarian would style them; and in the 
middle of the fourth century, Proseresius was the 
leader or proctor of the Attic, Hephsestion of 
the Oriental, Epiphanius of the Arabic, and 
Diophantus of the Pontic. Thus the Professors 

30 were both patrons of clients, and hosts and 
proxeni of strangers and visitors, as well as mas- 



UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS 177 

ters of the schools : and the Cappadocian, Syrian, 
or SiciHan youth who came to one or other of 
them, would be encouraged to study by his pro- 
tection, and to aspire by his example. 

Even Plato, when the schools of Athens were 5 
not a hundred years old, was in circumstances 
to enjoy the otium cum dignitate. He had a villa 
out at Heraclea; and he left his patrimony to 
his school, in whose hands it remained, not only 
safe, but fructifying, a marvelous phenomenon in lo 
tumultuous Greece, for the long space of eight 
hundred years. Epicurus too had the property 
of the Gardens where he lectured; and these too 
became the property of his sect. But in Roman 
times the chairs of grammar, rhetoric, politics, 15 
and the four philosophies were handsomely 
endowed by the State; some of the Professors 
were themselves statesmen or high functionaries, 
and brought to their favorite study senatorial 
rank or Asiatic opulence. 20 

Patrons such as these can compensate to the 
freshman, in whom we have interested ourselves, 
for the poorness of his lodging and the turbulence 
of his companions. In everything there is a 
better side and a worse; in every place a dis-25 
reputable set and a respectable, and the one is 
hardly known at all to the other. Men come 
away from the same University at this day, with 
contradictory impressions and contradictory state- 
ments, according to the society they have found 30 
there; if you believe the one, nothing goes on 



178 UNIVERSITIES 

there as it should be : if you beheve the other, 
nothing goes on as it should not. Virtue, how- 
ever, and decency are at least in the minority 
everywhere, and under some sort of a cloud or 

5 disadvantage ; and this being the case, it is so 
much gain whenever an Herodes Atticus is found, 
to throw the influence of wealth and station on 
the side even of a decorous philosophy. A con- 
sular man, and the heir of an ample fortune, this 

10 Herod was content to devote his life to a profes- 
sorship, and his fortune to the patronage of 
literature. He gave the sophist Polemo about 
eight thousand pounds, as the sum is calculated, 
for three declamations. He built at Athens a 

15 stadium six hundred feet long, entirely of white 
marble, and capable of admitting the whole popu- 
lation. His theater, erected to the memory of 
his wife, was made of cedar wood curiously carved. 
He had two villas, one at Marathon, the place of 

20 his birth, about ten miles from Athens, the other 
at Cephissia, at the distance of six; and thither 
he drew to him the elite, and at times the whole 
body of the students. Long arcades, groves of 
trees, clear pools for the bath, delighted and 

25 recruited the summer visitor. Never was so 
brilliant a lecture room as his evening banquet- 
ing hall ; highly connected students from Rome 
mixed with the sharp-witted provincial of Greece 
or Asia Minor; and the flippant sciolist, and the 

30 nondescript visitor, half philosopher, half tramp, 
met with a reception, courteous always, but suit- 



UNIVERSITY LIFE: ATHENS 170 

able to his deserts. Herod was noted for his 
repartees; and we have instances on record of 
his setting down, according to the emergency, 
both the one and the other. 

A higher hne, though a rarer one, was that 5 
allotted to the youthful Basil. He was one of 
those men who seem by a sort of fascination to 
draw others around them even without wishing 
it. One might have deemed that his gravity and 
his reserve would have kept them at a distance ; lo 
but, almost in spite of himself, he was the center 
of a knot of 3^ouths, who, pagans as most of them 
were, used Athens honestly for the purpose for 
which they professed to seek it ; and, disappointed 
and displeased with the place himself, he seems 15 
nevertheless to have been the means of their 
profiting by its advantages. One of these was 
Sophronius, who afterwards held a high office in 
the State : Eusebius was another, at that time 
the bosom friend of Sophronius, and afterwards 20 
a Bishop. Celsus too is named, who afterwards 
was raised to the government of Cilicia by the 
Emperor Julian. Julian himself, in the sequel of 
unhappy memory, was then at Athens, and known 
at least to St. Gregory. Another Julian is also 25 
mentioned, who was afterwards commissioner of 
the land tax. Here we have a glimpse of the better 
kind of society among the students of Athens; and 
it is to the credit of the parties composing it, 
that such young men as Gregory and Basil, men 30 
as intimately connected with Christianity, as they 



180 UNIVERSITIES 

were well known in the world, should hold so high 
a place in their esteem and love. When the two 
saints were departing, their companions came 
around them with the hope of changing their pur- 
5 pose. Basil persevered ; but Gregory relented, 
and turned back to Athens for a season. 

Supply and Demand 

the schoolmen 

It is most interesting to observe how the 
foundations of the present intellectual greatness 
of Europe were laid, and most wonderful to think 

10 that they were ever laid at all. Let us consider 
how wide and how high is the platform of our 
knowledge at this day, and what openings in 
every direction are in progress — openings of 
such promise, that, unless some convulsion of 

15 society takes place, even what we have attained, 
will in future times be nothing better than a poor 
beginning; and then on the other hand, let us 
recollect that, seven centuries ago, putting aside 
revealed truths, Europe had little more than that 

20 poor knowledge, partial and uncertain, and at 
best only practical, which is conveyed to us by the 
senses. Even our first principles now are beyond 
the most daring conjectures then; and what has 
been said so touchingly of Christian ideas as com- 

25 pared with pagan, is true in its way and degree 
of the progress of secular knowledge also in the 
seven centuries I have named. 



SUPPLY AND DEMAND: SCHOOLMEN 181 

" What sages would have died to learn, 
[Is] taught by cottage dames." 

Nor is this the only point in which the reve- 
lations of science may be compared to the su- 
pernatural revelations of Christianity. Though 5 
sacred truth was delivered once for all, and 
scientific discoveries are progressive, yet there is 
a great resemblance in the respective histories of 
Christianity and of Science. We are accustomed 
to point to the rise and spread of Christianity as lo 
a miraculous fact, and rightly so, on account of 
the weakness of its instruments, and the appalling 
weight and multiplicity of the obstacles which 
confronted it. To clear away those obstacles 
was to move mountains; yet this was done byi5 
a few poor, obscure, unbefriended men, and 
their poor, obscure, unbefriended followers. No 
social movement can come up to this marvel, 
which is singular and archetypical, certainly; 
it is a Divine work, and we soon cease to admire 20 
it in order to adore. But there is more in it 
than its own greatness to contemplate; it is so 
great as to be prolific of greatness. Those whom 
it has created, its children who have become such 
by a supernatural power, have imitated, in their 25 
own acts, the dispensation which made them 
what they were; and, though they have not car- 
ried out works simply miraculous, yet they have 
done exploits sufficient to bespeak their own 
unearthly origin, and the new powers which had 30 
come into the world. The revival of letters by 



182 UNlVEBSITmS 

the energy of Christian ecclesiastics and laymen, 
when everything had to be done, reminds us of 
the birth of Christianity itself, as far as a work of 
man can resemble a work of God. 

5 Two characteristics, as I have already had oc- 
casion to say, are generally found to attend the 
history of Science : first, its instruments have 
an innate force, and can dispense with foreign 
assistance in their work; and secondly, these 

10 instruments must exist and must begin to act, 
before subjects are found who are to profit by 
their action. In plainer language, the teacher is 
strong, not in the patronage of great men, but 
in the intrinsic value and attraction of what he 

15 has to communicate; and next, he must come 
forward and advertise himself, before he can gain 
hearers. This I have expressed before, in saying 
that a great school of learning lived in demand and 
supply, and that the supply must be before the 

20 demand. Now, what is this but the very history 
of the preaching of the Gospel? who but the 
Apostles and Evangelists went out to the ends 
of the earth without patron, or friend, or other 
external advantage which could insure their suc- 

25 cess? and again, who among the multitude they 
enlightened would have called for their aid unless 
they had gone to that multitude first, and offered 
to it blessings which up to that moment it had 
not heard of? They had no commission, they 

30 had no invitation, from man; their strength lay 
neither in their being sent, nor in their being sent 



SUPPLY AND DEMAND : SCHOOLMEN 183 

for; but in the circumstances that they had that 
with them, a Divine message, which they knew 
would at once, when it was uttered, thrill through 
the hearts of those to whom they spoke, and 
make for themselves friends in any place, stran- 5 
gers and outcasts as they were when they first 
came. They appealed to the secret wants and 
aspirations of human nature, to its laden con- 
science, its weariness, its desolateness, and its 
sense of the true and the Divine; nor did theyio 
long wait for listeners and disciples, when they 
announced the remedy of evils which were so real. 
Something like this were the first stages of the 
process by which in mediaeval Christendom the 
structure of our present intellectual elevation 15 
was carried forward. From Rome as from a 
center, as the Apostles from Jerusalem, went 
forth the missionaries of knowledge, passing to 
and fro all over Europe; and, as Metropolitan 
sees were the record of the presence of Apostles, 20 
so did Paris, Pavia, and Bologna, and Padua, 
and Ferrara, Pisa and Naples, Vienna, Louvain, 
and Oxford, rise into Universities at the voice of 
the theologian or the philosopher. Moreover, as 
the Apostles went through labors untold, by 25 
sea and land, in their charity to souls; so, if 
robbers, shipwrecks, bad lodging, and scanty fare 
are trials of zeal, such trials were encountered 
without hesitation by the martyrs and confessors 
of science. And as Evangelists had grounded 30 
their teaching upon the longing for happiness 



184 UNIVERSITIES 

natural to man, so did these securely rest their 
cause on the natural thirst for knowledge: and 
again as the preachers of Gospel peace had often 
to bewail the ruin which persecution or dissen- 
ssion had brought upon their flourishing colonies, 
so also did the professors of science often find or 
flee the ravages of sword or pestilence in those 
places, which they themselves perhaps in former 
times had made the seats of religious, honorable, 

10 and useful learning. And lastly, as kings and no- 
bles have fortified and advanced the interests 
of the Christian faith without being necessary 
to it, so in like manner we may enumerate with 
honor Charlemagne, Alfred, Henry the First of 

15 England, Joan of Navarre, and many others, as 
patrons of the schools of learning, without being 
obliged to allow that those schools could not have 
progressed w^ithout such countenance. 

These are some of the points of resemblance 

20 between the propagation of Christian truth and 
the revival of letters; and, to return to the two 
points, to which I have particularly drawn atten- 
tion, the University Professor's confidence in his 
own powers, and his taking the initiative in the 

25 exercise of them, I find both these distinctly recog- 
nized by Mr. Hallam in his history of Literature. 
As to the latter point, he says, "The schools of 
Charlemagne were designed to lay the basis of a 
learned education, for which there was at that time 

30 no sufficient desire" — that is, the supply was 
prior to the demand. As to the former: "In 



SUPPLY AND DEMAND: SCHOOLMEN 185 

the twelfth century," he says, "the impetuosity 
with which men rushed to that source of what 
they deemed wisdom, the great University of 
Paris, did not depend upon academical privileges 
or eleemosynary stipends, though these were un- 5 
doubtedly very effectual in keeping it up. The 
University created patrons, and was not created 
by them'' — that is, demand and supply were all 

in all. ... 

Bee, a poor monastery of Normandy, set up m lo 
the eleventh century by an illiterate soldier, who 
sought the cloister, soon attracted scholars to its 
dreary clime from Italy, and transmitted them 
to England. Lanfranc, afterwards Archbishop of 
Canterbury, was one of these, and he found the 15 
simple monks so necessitous, that he opened a 
school of logic to all comers, in order, says William 
of Malmesbury, " that he might support his needy 
monastery by the pay of the students." The 
same author adds, that "his reputation went mto20 
the most remote parts of the Latin world, and 
Bee became a great and famous Academy of 
letters." Here is an instance of a commence- 
ment without support, without scholars, in order 
to attract scholars, and in them to find support. 25 
William of Jumieges, too, bears witness to the 
effect, powerful, sudden, wide spreading, and 
various, of Lanfranc's advertisement of himself. 
The fame of Bee and Lanfranc, he says, quickly 
penetrated through the whole world ; and " clerks, so 
the sons of dukes, the most esteemed masters of 



186 UNIVERSITIES 

the Latin schools, powerful laymen, high nobles, 
flocked to him." What words can more strikingly 
attest the enthusiastic character of the movement 
which he began, than to say that it carried away 
5 with it all classes; rich as well as poor, laymen as 
well as ecclesiastics, those who were in that day 
in the habit of despising letters, as well as those 
who might wish to live by them? . . . 

The Strength and Weakness of Universi- 
ties 

ABELARD 

We can have few more apposite illustrations 

10 of at once the strength and weakness of what 
may be called the University principle, of what 
it can do and what it cannot, of its power to col- 
lect students, and its impotence to preserve and 
edify them, than the history of the celebrated 

i5Abelard. His name is closely associated with 
the commencement of the University of Paris; 
and in his popularity and in his reverses, in the 
criticisms of John of Salisbury on his method, 
and the protest of St. Bernard against his teach- 

2oing, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what a 
University professes in its essence, and what it 
needs for its " integrity." It is not to be supposed, 
that I am prepared to show this here, as fully as 
it might be shown; but it is a subject so perti- 

25nent to the general object of these Essays, that it 
may be useful to devote even a few pages to it. 



STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS: ABELABD 187 

The oracles of Divine Truth, as time goes on, 
do but repeat the one message from above which 
they have ever uttered, since the tongues of fire 
attested the coming of the Paraclete; still, as 
time goes on, they utter it with greater force and 5 
precision, under diverse forms, with fuller lumi- 
nousness, and a richer ministration of thought 
statement, and argument. They meet the vary- 
ing wants, and encounter the special resistance 
of each successive age; and, though prescient of lo 
coming errors and their remedy long before, they 
cautiously reserve their new enunciation of the 
old Truth, till it is imperatively demanded. And, 
as it happens in kings' cabinets, that surmises 
arise, and rumors spread, of what is said in coun- 15 
cil, and is in course of preparation, and secrets per- 
haps get wind, true in substance or in direction, 
though distorted in detail; so too, before the 
Church speaks, one or other of her forward chil- 
dren speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate 20 
to a certain point what she is about to say or 
enjoin, he states it incorrectly, makes it error 
instead of truth, and risks his own faith in the 
process. Indeed, this is actually one source, or 
rather concomitant, of heresy, the presence of 25 
some misshapen, huge, and grotesque foreshadow 
of true statements which are to come. Speaking 
under correction, I would apply this remark to 
the heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which may 
be considered a reaction from existing errors, and 30 
an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore unsuc- 



188 UNIVEBSITIES 

cessful, to meet them with those divinely ap- 
pointed correctives which the Church alone can 
apply, and which she will actually apply, when 
the proper moment comes. The Gnostics boasted 
5 of their intellectual proficiency before the time 
of St. Irenseus, St. Athanasius, and St. Augus- 
tine; yet, when these doctors made their ap- 
pearance, I suppose they were examples of that 
knowledge, true and deep, which the Gnostics 

10 professed. ApoUinaris anticipated the work of 
St. Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and became 
a heresiarch in consequence; and, to come down 
to the present times, we may conceive that 
writers, who have impatiently fallen away from 

15 the Church, because she would not adopt their 
views, would have found, had they but trusted 
her, and waited, that she knew how to profit by 
them, though she never could have need to bor- 
row her enunciations from them; for their writ- 

20 ings contained, so to speak, truth in the ore, truth 
which they themselves had not the gift to dis- 
engage from its foreign concomitants, and safely 
use, which she alone could use, which she would 
use in her destined hour, and which became their 

25 stone of stumbling simply because she did not 
use it faster. Now, applying this principle to 
the subject before us, I observe, that, supposing 
Abelard to be the first master of scholastic philos- 
ophy, as many seem to hold, we shall have still 

30 no difficulty in condemning the author, while we 
honor the work. To him is only the glory of 



STBENGTH AND WEAKNESS: ABELARD 189 

spoiling by his own self-will what would have 
been done well and surely under the teaching 
and guidance of Infallible Authority. 

Nothing is more certain than that some ideas 
are consistent with one another, and others in- 5 
consistent ; and, again, that every truth must be 
consistent with every other truth — hence, that 
all truths of whatever kind form into one large 
body of Truth, by virtue of the consistency be- 
tween one truth and another, which is a connect- lo 
ing link running through them all. The science 
which discovers this connection is logic; and, 
as it discovers the connection when the truths are 
given, so, having one truth given and the con- 
necting principle, it is able to go on to ascertain 15 
the other. Though all this is obvious, it was 
realized and acted on in the middle age with 
a distinctness unknown before; all subjects of 
knowledge were viewed as parts of one vast 
system, each with its own place in it, and from 20 
knowing one, another was inferred. Not indeed 
always rightly inferred, because the art might 
be less perfect than the science, the instrument 
than the theory and aim; but I am speaking of 
the principle of the scholastic method, of which 25 
Saints and Doctors were the teachers — such 
I conceive it to be, and Abelard was the ill-fated 
logician who had a principal share in bringing it 
into operation. 

Others will consider the great St. Anselm and 30 
the school of Bee, as the proper source of Scholas- 



190 UNIVERSITIES 

ticism; Lam not going to discuss the question; 
anyhow, Abelard, and not St. Anselm, was the 
Professor at the University of Paris, and it is 
of Universities that I am speaking; anyhow, 

5Abelard illustrates the strength and the weak- 
ness of the principle of advertising and communi- 
cating knowledge for its own sake, which I have 
called the University principle, whether he is, 
or is not, the first of scholastic philosophers or 

10 scholastic theologians. And, though I could not 
speak of him at all without mentioning the sub- 
ject of his teaching, yet, after all, it is of him and 
of his teaching itself, that I am going to speak, 
whatever that might be which he actually taught. 

15 Since Charlemagne's time the schools of Paris 
had continued, with various fortunes, faithful, as 
far as the age admitted, to the old learning, as 
other schools elsewhere, when, in the eleventh 
century, the famous school of Bee began to de- 

2ovelop the powers of logic in forming a new 
philosophy. As the inductive method rose in 
Bacon, so did the logical in the mediaeval school- 
men; and Aristotle, the most comprehensive 
intellect of Antiquity, as the one who had con- 

25ceived the sublime idea of mapping the whole 
field of knowledge, and subjecting all things to 
one profound analysis, became the presiding mas- 
ter in their lecture halls. It was at the end 
of the eleventh century that William of Cham- 

sopeaux founded the celebrated Abbey of St. Vic- 
tor under the shadow of St. Genevieve, and by 



STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS: ABEL ABB 191 

the dialectic methods which he introduced into his 
teaching, has a claim to have commenced the 
work of forming the University out of the Schools 
of Paris. For one at least, out of the two char- 
acteristics of a University, he prepared the way; 5 
for, though the schools were not public till after 
his day, so as to admit laymen as well as clerks, 
and foreigners as well as natives of the place, yet 
the logical principle of constructing all sciences 
into one system, implied of course a recognition lO 
of all the sciences that are comprehended in it. 
Of this William of Champeaux, or de Campellis, 
Abelard was the pupil; he had studied the dia- 
lectic art elsewhere, before he offered himself for 
his instructions ; and, in the course of two years, is 
when as yet he had only reached the age of 
twenty-two, he made such progress, as to be 
capable of quarreling with his master, and set- 
ting up a school for himself. 

This school of Abelard was first situated in 20 
the royal castle of Melun; then at Corbeil, which 
was nearer to Paris, and where he attracted to 
himself a considerable number of hearers. His 
labors had an injurious effect upon his health; 
and at length he withdrew for two years to his 25 
native Britanny. Whether other causes coop- 
erated in this withdrawal, I think, is not known; 
but, at the end of the two years, we find him 
returning to Paris, and renewing his attendance 
on the lectures of William, who was by this time 30 
a monk. Rhetoric was the subject of the lee- 



192 UNIVERSITIES 

tures he now heard; and after a while the pupil 
repeated with greater force and success his 
former treatment of his teacher. He held a 
public disputation with him, got the victory, 
sand reduced him to silence. The school of Wil- 
liam was deserted, and its master himself became 
an instance of the vicissitudes incident to that 
gladiatorial wisdom (as I may style it) which was 
then eclipsing the old Benedictine method of the 

10 Seven Arts. After a time, Abelard found his 
reputation sufficient to warrant him in setting 
up a school himself on Mount St. Genevieve; 
whence he waged incessant war against the un- 
wearied logician, who by this time had rallied 

15 his forces to repel the young and ungrateful 

adventurer who had raised his hand against him. 

Great things are done by devotion to one idea; 

there is one class of geniuses, who would never 

be what they are, could they grasp a second. 

20 The calm philosophical mind, which contem- 
plates parts without denying the whole, and the 
whole without confusing the parts, is notoriously 
indisposed to action; whereas single and simple 
views arrest the mind, and hurry it on to carry 

25 them out. Thus, men of one idea and nothing 
more, whatever their merit, must be to a certain 
extent narrow-minded; and it is not wonderful 
that Abelard's devotion to the new philosophy 
made him undervalue the Seven Arts out of which 

30 it had grown. He felt it impossible so to honor 
what was now to be added, as not to dishonor 



STRENGTB AND WEAKNESS: ABELARD 193 

what existed before. He would not suffer the 
Arts to have their own use, since he had found a 
new instrument for a new purpose. So he op- 
posed the reading of the Classics. The monks 
had opposed them before him; but this is little 5 
to our present purpose; it was the duty of men, 
who abjured the gifts of this world on the prin- 
ciple of mortification, to deny themselves litera- 
ture just as they would deny themselves particu- 
lar friendships or figured music. The doctrine lo 
which Abelard introduced and represents was 
founded on a different basis. He did not recog- 
nize in the poets of antiquity any other merit 
than that of furnishing an assemblage of elegant 
phrases and figures ; and accordingly he asks 15 
why they should not be banished from the city 
of God, since Plato banished them from his own 
commonwealth. The animus of this language is 
clear, when we turn to the pages of John of Salis- 
bury and Peter of Blois, who were champions of 20 
the ancient learning. We find them complaining 
that the careful "getting up," as we now call it, 
" of books," was growing out of fashion. Youths ■ 
once studied critically the text of poets or philoso- 
phers; they got them by heart; they analyzed 25 
their arguments ; they noted down their fallacies ; 
they were closely examined in the matters which 
had been brought before them in lecture; they 
composed. But now, another teaching was com- 
ing in; students were promised truth in a nut- 30 
shell ; they intended to get possession of the sum- 



194 UNIVERSITIES 

total of philosophy in less than two or three 
years; and facts were apprehended, not in their 
substance and details, by means of living and, 
as it were, personal documents, but in dead 
5 abstracts and tables. Such were the reclama- 
tions to which the new Logic gave occasion. 

These, however, are lesser matters; we have 
a graver quarrel with Abelard than that of his 
undervaluing the Classics. As I have said, my 

10 main object here is not what he taught, but why 
and how, and how he lived. Now it is certain 
his activity was stimulated by nothing very high, 
but something very earthly and sordid. I grant 
there is nothing morally wrong in the mere desire 

15 to rise in the world, though Ambition and it are 
twin sisters. I should not blame Abelard merely 
for wishing to distinguish himself at the Uni- 
versity; but when he makes the ecclesiastical 
state the instrument of his ambition, mixes up 

20 spiritual matters with temporal, and aims at a 
bishopric through the medium of his logic, he 
joins together things incompatible, and cannot 
complain of being censured. It is he himself, 
who tells us, unless my memory plays me false, 

25 that the circumstance of William of Champeaux 
being promoted to the see of Chalons, was an in- 
centive to him to pursue the same path with an 
eye to the same rew^ard. Accordingly, we next 
hear of his attending the theological lectures of 

30 a certain master of William's, named Anselm, an 
old man, whose school was situated at Laon. This 



STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS: ABELARD 195 

person had a great reputation in his day; John 
of Salisbury, speaking of him in the next genera- 
tion, calls him the doctor of doctors; he had been 
attended by students from Italy and Germany; 
but the age had advanced since he was in his 5 
prime, and Abelard was disappointed in a teacher, 
who had been good enough for William. He left 
Ansel m, and began to lecture on the prophet 
Ezekiel on his own resources. 

Now came the time of his great popularity, 10 
which was more than his head could bear; which 
dizzied him, took him off his legs, and whirled 
him to his destruction. I spoke in my foregoing 
Chapter of those three qualities of true wisdom, 
which a University, absolutely and nakedly con- 15 
sidered, apart from the safeguards which consti- 
tute its integrity, is sure to compromise. Wis- 
dom, says the inspired writer, is desursum, is 
pudica, is pacifica, "from above, chaste, peace- 
able." We have already seen enough of Abelard's 20 
career to understand that his wisdom, instead of 
being "pacifica," was ambitious and contentious. 
An Apostle speaks of the tongue both as a blessing 
and as a curse. It may be the beginning of a fire, 
he says, a " Universitas iniquitatis"; and alas! 25 
such did it become in the mouth of the gifted 
Abelard. His eloquence was wonderful; he daz- 
zled his contemporaries, says Fulco, "by the 
brilliancy of his genius, the sweetness of his elo- 
quence, the ready flow of his language, and the 30 
subtlety of his knowledge." People came to 



196 UNIVERSITIES 

him from all quarters — from Rome, in spite of 
mountains and robbers; from England, in spite 
of the sea; from Flanders and Germany; from 
Normandy, and the remote districts of France; 

5 from Angers and Poitiers; from Navarre by the 
Pyrenees, and from Spain, besides the students 
of Paris itself; and among those, who sought his 
instructions now or afterwards, were the great 
luminaries of the schools in the next generation. 

10 Such were Peter of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, John 
of Salisbury, Arnold of Brescia, Ivo, and Geoffrey 
of Auxerre. It was too much for a weak head 
and heart, weak in spite of intellectual power; 
for vanity will possess the head, and worldliness 

15 the heart, of the man, however gifted, whose wis- 
dom is not an effluence of the Eternal Light. 

True wisdom is not only "pacifica," it is 
"pudica"; chaste as well as peaceable. Alas for 
Abelard ! a second disgrace, deeper than ambi- 

20 tion, is his portion now. The strong man — the 
Samson of the schools in the wildness of his course, 
the Solomon in the fascination of his genius — 
shivers and falls before the temptation which 
overcame that mighty pair, the most excelling 

25 in body and in mind. 

In a time when Colleges were unknown, and the 
young scholar was commonly thrown upon the 
dubious hospitality of a great city, Abelard might 
even be thought careful of his honor, that he 

30 went to lodge with an old ecclesiastic, had not 
his host's niece Eloisa lived with him. A more 



STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS: ABELABB 197 

subtle snare was laid for him than beset the he- 
roic champion or the all-accomplished monarch of 
Israel; for sensuality came upon him under the 
guise of intellect, and it was the high mental 
endowments of Eloisa, who became his pupil, 5 
speaking in her eyes, and thrilling on her tongue, 
which were the intoxication and the delirium of 
Abelard. . . . 

He is judged, he is punished; but he is not 
reclaimed. True wisdom is not only " pacifica," lO 
not only "pudica;" it is "desursum" too. It is 
a revelation from above; it knows heresy as 
little as it knows strife or license. But Abelard, 
who had run the career of earthly wisdom in two 
of its phases, now is destined to represent itsis 
third. 

It is at the famous Abbey of St. Denis that we 
find him languidly rising from his dream of sin, 
and the suffering that followed. The bad dream 
is cleared away; clerks come to him, and the 20 
Abbot begging him to lecture still, for love 
now, as for gain before. Once more his school is 
thronged by the curious and the studious; but 
at length a rumor spreads, that Abelard is ex- 
ploring the way to some novel view on the 25 
subject of the Most Holy Trinity. Wherefore is 
hardly clear, but about the same time the monks 
drive him away from the place of refuge he had 
gained. He betakes himself to a cell, and thither 
his pupils follow him. " I betook myself to a 30 
certain cell," he says, "wishing to give myself to 



198 UNIVERSITIES 

the schools, as was my custom. Thither so great 
a multitude of scholars flocked; that there was 
neither room to house them, nor fruits of the 
earth to feed them," such was the enthusiasm of 
5 the student, such the attraction of the teacher, 
when knowledge was advertised freely, and its 
market opened. 

Next he is in Champagne, in a delightful soli- 
tude near Nogent in the diocese of Troyes. Here 

10 the same phenomenon presents itself, which is 
so frequent in his history. " When the scholars 
knew it," he says, " they began to crowd thither 
from all parts ; and, leaving other cities and strong- 
holds, they were content to dwell in the wilder- 

15 ness. For spacious houses they framed for them- 
selves small tabernacles, and for delicate food they 
put up with wild herbs. Secretly did they 
whisper among themselves : ' Behold, the whole 
world is gone out after him!' When, however, 

20 my Oratory could not hold even a moderate por- 
tion of them, then they were forced to enlarge 
it, and to build it up with wood and stone." 
He called the place his Paraclete, because it had 
been his consolation. 

25 I do not know why I need follow his life further. 
I have said enough to illustrate the course of one, 
who may be called the founder, or at least the first 
great name, of the Parisian Schools. After the 
events I have mentioned he is found in Lower 

soBritanny; then, being about forty-eight years of 
age, in the Abbey of St. Gildas; then with St. 



STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS: ABELARD 199 

Genevieve again. He had to sustain the fiery 
eloquence of a Saint, directed against his novelties; 
he had to present himself before two Councils; 
he had to burn the book which had given offense 
to pious ears. His last two years were spent at 5 
Clugni on his way to Rome. The home of the 
weary, the hospital of the sick, the school of the 
erring, the tribunal of the penitent, is the city 
of St. Peter. He did not reach it; but he is 
said to have retracted what had given scandal in 10 
his writings, and to have made an edifying end. 
He died at the age of sixty-two, in the year of 
grace 1142. 

In reviewing his career, the career of so great 
an intellect so miserably thrown away, we are 15 
reminded of the famous words of the dying 
scholar and jurist, which are a lesson to us all, 
" Heu, vitam perdidi, operose nihil agendo." A 
happier lot be ours ! 



IV. MISCELLANEOUS 

Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's 
Poetics 

Poetry, according to Aristotle, is a represen- 
tation of the ideal. Biography and history rep- 
resent individual characters and actual facts; 
poetry, on the contrary, generalizing from the 
5 phenomenon of nature and life, supplies us with 
pictures drawn, not after an existing pattern, 
but after a creation of the mind. Fidelity is the 
primary merit of biography and history; the 
essence of poetry is fiction. "Poesis nihil aliud 

10 est," says Bacon, "quam historiae imitatio ad 
placitum." It delineates that perfection which 
the imagination suggests, and to which as a 
limit the present system of Divine Providence 
actually tends. Moreover, by confining the atten- 

istion to one series of events and scene of action, it 
bounds and finishes off the confused luxuriance 
of real nature; while, by a skillful adjustment of 
circumstances, it brings into sight the connection 
of cause and effect, completes the dependence of 

20 the parts one on another, and harmonizes the 

proportions of the whole. It is then but the type 

and model of history or biography, if we may be 

allowed the comparison, bearing some resemblance 

200 



POETRY: ARISTOTLE'S POETICS 201 

to the abstract mathematical formulae of physics, 
before they are modified by the contingencies of 
atmosphere and friction. Hence, while it recreates 
the imagination by the superhuman loveliness of 
its views, it provides a solace for the mind broken 5 
by the disappointments and sufferings of actual 
life; and becomes, moreover, the utterance of 
the inward emotions of a right moral feeling, 
seeking a purity and a truth which this world 
will not give. 10 

It follows that the poetical mind is one full of 
the eternal forms of beauty and perfection ; these 
are its material of thought, its instrument and 
medium of observation; these color each ob- 
ject to which it directs its view. It is called 15 
imaginative, or creative, from the originality and 
independence of its modes of thinking, compared 
with the commonplace and matter-of-fact con- 
ceptions of ordinary minds vv^hich are fettered 
down to the particular and individual. At the 20 
same time it feels a natural sympathy with every- 
thing great and splendid in the physical and 
moral world; and selecting such from the mass 
of common phenomena, incorporates them, as it 
were, into the substance of its own creations. 25 
From living thus in a world of its own, it speaks 
the language of dignity, emotion, and refinement. 
Figure is its necessary medium of communication 
with man ; for in the feebleness of ordinary words 
to express its ideas, and in the absence of terms of 30 
abstract perfection, the adoption of metaphorical 



202 MISCELLANEOUS 

language is the only poor means allowed it for im- 
parting to others its intense feelings. A metrical 
garb has, in all languages, been appropriated to 
poetry — it is but the outward development of 

5 the music and harmony within. The verse, far 
from being a restraint on the true poet, is the 
suitable index of his sense, and is adopted by his 
free and deliberate choice. We shall presently 
show the applicability of our doctrine to the 

10 various departments of poetical composition; 
first, however, it will be right to volunteer an 
explanation which may save it from much mis- 
conception and objection. Let not our notion 
be thought arbitrarily to limit the number of 

15 poets, generally considered such. It will be 
found to lower particular works, or parts of 
works, rather than the authors themselves; 
sometimes to disparage only the vehicle in which 
the poetry is conveyed. There is an ambiguity 

20 in the word "poetry," which is taken to signify 
both the gift itself, and the written composition 
which is the result of it. Thus there is an appar- 
ent, but no real, contradiction in saying a poem 
may be but partially poetical; in some passages 

25 more so than in others; and sometimes not 
poetical at all. We only maintain, not that the 
writers forfeit the name of poet who fail at times 
to answer to our requisitions, but that they are 
poets only so far forth, and inasmuch as they do 

30 answer to them. We may grant, for instance, 
that the vulgarities of old Phoenix in the ninth 



POETRY: ARISTOTLE'S POETICS 203 

Iliad, or of the nurse of Orestes in the Choephom, 
are in themselves unworthy of their respective 
authors, and refer them to the wantonness of 
exuberant genius; and yet maintain that the 
scenes in question contain much incidental poetry. 5 
Now and then the luster of the true metal catches 
the eye, redeeming whatever is unseemly and 
worthless in the rude ore; still the ore is not the 
metal. Nay, sometimes, and not unfrequently in 
Shakspeare, the introduction of unpoetical mat-io 
ter may be necessary for the sake of relief, or as 
a vivid expression of recondite conceptions, and, 
as it were, to make friends with the reader's 
imagination. This necessity, however, cannot 
make the additions in themselves beautiful and 15 
pleasing. Sometimes, on the other hand, while 
we do not deny the incidental beauty of a poem, 
we are ashamed and indignant on witnessing the 
unworthy substance in which that beauty is 
embedded. This remark applies strongly to the 20 
immoral compositions to which Lord Byron 
devoted his last years. 

Now to proceed with our proposed investiga- 
tion. 

1. We will notice descriptive poetry first. 25 
Empedocles wrote his physics in verse, and 
Oppian his history of animals. Neither were 
poets — the one was an historian of nature, the 
other a sort of biographer of brutes. Yet a poet 
may make natural history or philosophy the 30 
material of his composition. But under his hands 



204 MISCELLANEOUS 

they are no longer a bare collection of facts or 
principles, but are painted with a meaning, 
beauty, and harmonious order not their own. 
Thomson has sometimes been commended for 
5 the novelty and minuteness of his remarks upon 
nature. This is not the praise of a poet, whose 
office rather is to represent known phenomena in 
a new connection or medium. In U Allegro and 
// Penseroso the poetical magician invests the 

10 commonest scenes of a country life with the hues, 
first of a cheerful, then of a pensive imagination. 
It is the charm of the descriptive poetry of a 
religious mind, that nature is viewed in a moral 
connection. Ordinary writers, for instance, com- 

15 pare aged men to trees in autumn — a gifted 
poet will in the fading trees discern the fading 
men.^ Pastoral poetry is a description of rus- 
tics, agriculture, and cattle, softened off and 
corrected from the rude health of nature. Virgil, 

20 and much more Pope and others, have run into 
the fault of coloring too highly ; instead of draw- 
ing generalized and ideal forms of shepherds, they 
have given us pictures of gentlemen and beaux. 
Their composition may be poetry, but it is not 

25 pastoral poetry. 

2. The difference between poetical and his- 
torical narrative may be illustrated by the Tales 

1 Thus :— 

"How quiet shows the woodland scene! 
Each flower and tree, its duty done, 
Reposing in decay serene, 
Like weary men when age is won/' etc. 



POETRY: ABISTOTLE'S POETICS 205 

Founded on Facts, generally of a religious char- 
acter, so common in the present day, which we 
must not be thought to approve, because we use 
them for our purpose. The author finds in the 
circumstances of the case many particulars too 5 
trivial for public notice, or irrelevant to the main 
story, or partaking perhaps too much of the 
peculiarity of individual minds: these he omits. 
He finds connected events separated from each 
other by time or place, or a course of action dis- lo 
tributed among a multitude of agents; he limits 
the scene or duration of the tale, and dispenses 
with his host of characters by condensing the 
mass of incident and action in the history of a 
few. He compresses long controversies into a 15 
concise argument, and exhibits characters by 
dialogue, and (if such be his object) brings 
prominently forward the course of Divine Provi- 
dence by a fit disposition of his materials. Thus 
he selects, combines, refines, colors — in fact, 20 
poetizes. His facts are no longer actual, but 
ideal ; a tale founded on facts is a tale generalized 
from facts. The authors of Peveril of the Peak, 
and of Brambletye House, have given us their 
respective descriptions of the profligate times of 25 
Charles II. Both accounts are interesting, but 
for different reasons. That of the latter writer 
has the fidelity of history; Walter Scott's pic- 
ture is the hideous reality, unintentionally softened 
and decorated by the poetry of his own mind. 30 
Miss Edge worth sometimes apologizes for certam 



20G MISCELLANEOUS 

incident in her tales by stating they took place 
"by one of those strange chances which occur in 
life, but seem incredible when found in writing." 
Such an excuse evinces a misconception of the 
5 principle of fiction, which, being the perfection of 
the actual, prohibits the introduction of any such 
anomalies of experience. It is by a similar im- 
propriety that painters sometimes introduce un- 
usual sunsets, or other singular phenomena of 

10 lights and forms. Yet some of Miss Edgeworth's 
works contain much poetry of narrative. Maneu- 
vering is perfect in its way, — the plot and char- 
acters are natural, without being too real to be 
pleasing. 

15 3. Character is made poetical by a like process. 
The writer draws indeed from experience; but 
unnatural peculiarities are laid aside, and harsh 
contrasts reconciled. If it be said the fidelity 
of the imitation is often its greatest merit, we 

20 have only to reply, that in such cases the pleasure 
is" not poetical, but consists in the mere recogni- 
tion. All novels and tales which introduce real 
characters are in the same degree unpoetical. 
Portrait painting, to be poetical, should furnish 

25 an abstract representation of an individual ; the 
abstraction being more rigid, inasmuch as the 
painting is confined to one point of time. The 
artist should draw independently of the accidents 
of attitude, dress, occasional feeling, and transient 

30 action. He should depict the general spirit of 
his subject — as if he were copying from memory, 



POETRY: ABISTOTLE'S POETICS 207 

not from a few particular sittings. An ordinary 
painter will delineate with rigid fidelity, and will 
make a caricature; but the learned artist con- 
trives so to temper his composition, as to sink all 
offensive peculiarities and hardnesses of Individ- 5 
uality, without diminishing the striking effect of 
the likeness, or acquainting the casual spectator 
with the secret of his art. Miss Edgeworth's rep- 
resentations of the Irish character are actual, and 
not poetical — nor were they intended to be so. lo 
They are interesting, because they are faithful. 
If there is poetry about them, it exists in the 
personages themselves, not in her representation 
of them. She is only the accurate reporter in 
word of what was poetical in fact. Hence, more- 15 
over, when a deed or incident is striking in itself, 
a judicious writer is led to describe it in the most 
simple and colorless terms, his own being unneces- 
sary; for instance, if the greatness of the action 
itself excites the imagination, or the depth of the 20 
suffering interests the feelings. In the usual 
phrase, the circumstances are left "to speak for 
themselves." 

Let it not be said that our doctrine is adverse 
to that individuality in the delineation of charac- 25 
ter, which is a principal charm of fiction. It is 
not necessary for the ideality of a composition to 
avoid those minuter shades of difference between 
man and man, which give to poetry its plausibil- 
ity and life; but merely such violation of gen- 30 
eral nature, such improbabilities, wanderings, or 



^08 MISCELLANEOUS 

coarseness, as interfere with the refined and deli- 
cate enjoyment of the imagination; which would 
have the elements of beauty extracted out of 
the confused multitude of ordinary actions and 

5 habits, and combined with consistency and ease. 
Nor does it exclude the introduction of imperfect 
or odious characters. The original conception of 
a weak or guilty mind may have its intrinsic 
beauty; and much more so, when it is connected 

10 with a tale which finally adjusts whatever is 
reprehensible in the personages themselves. 
Richard and lago are subservient to the plot. 
Moral excellence in some characters may become 
even a fault. The Clytemnestra of Euripides is 

15 so interesting, that the Divine vengeance, which 
is the main subject of the drama, seems almost 
unjust. Lady Macbeth, on the contrary, is the 
conception of one deeply learned in the poetical 
art. She is polluted with the most heinous crimes, 

20 and meets the fate she deserves. Yet there is 
nothing in the picture to offend the taste, and 
much to feed the imagination. Romeo and 
Juliet are too good for the termination to which 
the plot leads; so are Ophelia and the Bride of 

25 Lammermoor. In these cases there is something 
inconsistent with correct beauty, and therefore 
unpoetical. We do not say the fault could be 
avoided without sacrificing more than would be 
gained; still it is a fault. It is scarcely possible 

30 for a poet satisfactorily to connect innocence with 
ultimate unhappiness, when the notion of a future 



POETRY: ARISTOTLE'S POETICS 209 

life is excluded. Honors paid to the memory of 
the dead are some alleviation of the harshness. 
In his use of the doctrine of a future life, Southey 
is admirable. Other writers are content to 
conduct their heroes to temporal happiness; 5 
Southey refuses present comfort to his Ladurlad, 
Thalaba, and Roderick, but carries them on 
through suffering to another world. The death 
of his hero is the termination of the action; yet 
so little in two of them, at least, does this catas- 10 
trophe excite sorrowful feelings, that some 
readers may be startled to be reminded of the 
fact. If a melancholy is thrown over the con- 
clusion of the Roderick, it is from the peculiarities 
of the hero's previous history. 15 

4. Opinions, feelings, manners, and customs 
are made poetical by the delicacy or splendor 
with which they are expressed. This is seen in 
the ode, elegy, sonnet, and ballad, in which a sin- 
gle idea, perhaps, or familiar occurrence, is in- 20 
vested by the poet with pathos or dignity. The 
ballad of Old Robin Gray will serve for an instance 
out of a multitude; again, Lord Byron's Hebrew 
Melody, beginning, " Were my bosom as false," 
etc.; or Cowper's Lines on his Mother^ s Picture; 26 
or Milman's Funeral Hymn in the Martyr of 
Antioch; or Milton's Sonnet on his Blindness; or 
Bernard Barton's Dream. As picturesque speci- 
mens, we may name Campbell's Battle of the 
Baltic; or Joanna Baillie's Chough and Crow; 2,0 
and for the more exalted and splendid style, 



210 MISCELLANEOUS 

Gray's Bard; or Milton's Hymn on the Nativity; 
in which facts, with which every one is familiar, 
are made new by the coloring of a poetical im- 
agination. It must all along be observed, that 

5 we are not adducing instances for their own sake ; 
but in order to illustrate our general doctrine, and 
to show its applicability to those compositions 
which are, by universal consent, acknowledged to 
be poetical. 

10 The department of poetry we are now speaking 
of is of much wider extent than might at first 
sight appear. It will include such moralizing and 
philosophical poems as Young's Night Thoughts, 
and Byron's Childe Harold. There is much bad 

15 taste, at present, in the judgment passed on com- 
positions of this kind. It is the fault of the day 
to mistake mere eloquence for poetry; whereas, 
in direct opposition to the conciseness and sim- 
plicity of the poet, the talent of the orator consists 

20 in making much of a single idea. " Sic dicet ille ut 
verset saepe multis modis eandem et unam rem, 
ut hsereat in eadem commoreturque sententia." 
This is the great art of Cicero himself, who, 
whether he is engaged in statement, argument, or 

25 raillery, never ceases till he has exhausted the sub- 
ject; going round about it, and placing it in every 
different light, yet without repetition to offend or 
weary the reader. This faculty seems to consist 
in the power of throwing off harmonious verses, 

30 which, while they have a respectable portion of 
meaning, yet are especially intended to charm the 



POETRY: ARISTOTLE'S POETICS 211 

ear. In popular poems, common ideas are un- 
folded with copiousness, and set off in polished 
verse — and this is called poetry. Such is the 
character of Campbell's Pleasures of Hope; it is 
in his minor poems that the author's poetical 5 
genius rises to its natural elevation. In Childe 
Harold, too, the writer is carried through his 
Spenserian stanza with the unweariness and 
equable fullness of accomplished eloquence; open- 
ing, illustrating, and heightening one idea, before lo 
he passes on to another. His composition is an 
extended funeral sermon over buried joys and 
pleasures. His laments over Greece, Rome, and 
the fallen in various engagements, have quite the 
character of panegyrical orations; while by the 15 
very attempt to describe the celebrated buildings 
and sculptures of antiquity, he seems to confess 
that they are the poetical text, his the rhetorical 
comment. Still it is a work of splendid talent, 
though, as a whole, not of the highest poetical 20 
excellence. Juvenal is perhaps the only ancient 
author who habitually substitutes declamation for 
poetry. 

5. The philosophy of mind may equally be made 
subservient to poetry, as the philosophy of nature. 25 
It is a common fault to mistake a mere knowledge 
of the heart for poetical talent. Our greatest 
masters have known better — they have sub- 
jected metaphysics to their art. In Hamlet, Mac- 
beth, Richard, and Othello, the philosophy of 30 
mind is but the material of the poet. These per- 



212 MISCELLANEOUS 

sonages are ideal ; they are effects of the contact 
of a given internal character with given outward 
circumstances, the results of combined conditions 
determining (so to say) a moral curve of original 
5 and inimitable properties. Philosophy is ex- 
hibited in the same subserviency to poetry in 
many parts of Crabbe's Tales of the Hall. In the 
writings of this author there is much to offend a 
refined taste ; but, at least in the work in question, 

10 there is much of a highly poetical cast. It is a 
representation of the action and reaction of two 
minds upon each other and upon the world around 
them. Two brothers of different characters and 
fortunes, and strangers to each other, meet. Their 

15 habits of mind, the formation of those habits by 
external circumstances, their respective media of 
judgment, their points of mutual attraction and 
repulsion, the mental position of each in relation 
to a variety of trifling phenomena of everyday 

20 nature and life, are beautifully developed in a 
series of tales molded into a connected narrative. 
We are tempted to single out the fourth book, 
which gives an account of the childhood and edu- 
cation of the younger brother, and which for 

25 variety of thought as well as fidelity of descrip- 
tion is in our judgment beyond praise. The 
Waverley Novels would afford us specimens of a 
similar excellence. One striking peculiarity of 
these tales is the author's practice of describing 

30 a group of characters bearing the same general 
features of mind, and placed in the same general 



POETRY: ARISTOTLE'S POETICS 213 

circumstances; yet so contrasted with each other 
in minute differences of mental constitution, that 
each diverges from the common starting point into 
a path peculiar to himself. The brotherhood of 
villains in Kenilworth, of knights in Ivanhoe, 5 
and of enthusiasts in Old Mortality are instances 
of this. This bearing of character and plot on 
each other is not often found in Byron's poems. 
The Corsair is intended for a remarkable person- 
age. We pass by the inconsistencies of his char- 10 
acter, considered by itself. The grand fault is, 
that whether it be natural or not, we are obliged 
to accept the author's word for the fidelity of his 
portrait. We are told, not shown, what the hero 
was. There is nothing in the plot which results 15 
from his peculiar formation of mind. An every- 
day bravo might equally well have satisfied the re- 
quirements of the action. Childe Harold, again, 
if he is anything, is a being professedly isolated 
from the world, and uninfluenced by it. One 20 
might as well draw Tityrus's stags grazing in the 
air, as a character of this kind; which yet, with 
more or less alteration, passes through successive 
editions in his other poems. Byron had very 
little versatility or elasticity of genius; he did not 25 
know how to make poetry out of existing materials. 
He declaims in his own way, and has the upper- 
hand as long as he is allowed to go on; but, if 
interrogated on principles of nature and good 
sense, he is at once put out and brought to a 30 
stand. 



214 MISCELLANEOUS 

Yet his conception of Sardanapalus and Myrrha 
is fine and ideal, and in the style of excellence 
which we have just been admiring in Shakspeare 
and Scott. 
5 These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may 
suffice. 

Now let us proceed to a fresh position; which, 
as before, shall first be broadly stated, then 
modified and explained. How does originality 

10 differ from the poetical talent? Without affect- 
ing the accuracy of a definition, we may call the 
latter the originality of right moral feeling. 

Originality may perhaps be defined the power 
of abstracting for one's self, and is in thought 

15 what strength of mind is in action. Our opinions 
are commonly derived from education and society. 
Common minds transmit as they receive, good and 
bad, true and false ; minds of original talent feel a 
continual propensity to investigate subjects, and 

20 strike out views for themselves, so that even old 
and established truths do not escape modifica- 
tion and accidental change when subjected to this 
process of mental digestion. Even the style of 
original writers is stamped with the peculiarities 

25 of their minds. When originality is found apart 
from good sense, which more or less is frequently 
the case, it shows itself in paradox and rashness 
of sentiment, and eccentricity of outward conduct. 
Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be separated 

30 from its good sense, or taste, as it is called, which 
is one of its elements. It is originality energizing 



POETRY: ARISTOTLE'S POETICS 215 

in the world of beauty; the originalit}^ of grace, 
purity, refinement, and good feeling. We do not 
hesitate to say, that poetry is ultimately founded 
on correct moral perception; that where there is 
no sound principle in exercise there will be no 5 
poetry ; and that on the whole (originality being 
granted) in proportion to the standard of a writer's 
moral character will his compositions vary in 
poetical excellence. This position, however, re- 
quires some explanation. lo 

Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that 
a poet must necessarily display virtuous and re- 
ligious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual 
material of poetry, but of its sources. A right 
moral state of heart is the formal and scientific 15 
condition of a poetical mind. Nor does it follow 
from our position that every poet must in fact be 
a man of consistent and practical principle; ex- 
cept so far as good feeling commonly produces or 
results from good practice. Burns was a man of 20 
inconsistent life; still, it is known, of much really 
sound principle at bottom. Thus his acknowl- 
edged poetical talent is in no wise inconsistent with 
the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the 
beauty which exists in his compositions to the 25 
remains of a virtuous and diviner nature within 
him. Nay, further than this, our theory holds 
good, even though it be shown that a depraved 
man may write a poem. As motives short of the 
purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so frames 30 
of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial 



216 MISCELLANEOUS 

and limited poetry. But even where this is 
instanced, the poetry of a vicious mind will be in- 
consistent and debased; that is, so far only poetry 
as the traces and shadows of holy truth still re- 

5 main upon it. On the other hand, a right moral 
feeling places the mind in the very center of that 
circle from which all the rays have their origin 
and range; whereas minds otherwise placed com- 
mand but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry. 

10 Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of 
opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth, 
and Southey may be considered, as far as their 
writings go, to approximate to this moral center. 
The following are added as further illustrations of 

15 our meaning. Walter Scott's center is chivalrous 
honor; Shakspeare exhibits the characteristics of 
an unlearned and undisciplined piety ; Homer the 
religion of nature and conscience, at times debased 
by polytheism. All these poets are religious. The 

20 occasional irreligion of Virgil's poetry is painful 
to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy. 
Dryden's Alexander's Feast is a magnificent com- 
position, and has high poetical beauties; but to a 
refined judgment there is something intrinsically 

25unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the 
praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to 
a process of clever reasoning erected on an untrue 
foundation — the one is a fallacy, the other is out 
of taste. Lord Byron's Manfred is in parts in- 

30 tensely poetical; yet the delicate mind naturally 
shrinks from the spirit wliich here and there re- 



POETRY: ARISTOTLE'S POETICS 217 

veals itself, and the basis on which the drama is 
built. From a perusal of it we should infer, ac- 
cording to the above theory, that there was right 
and fine feeling in the poet's mind, but that the 
central and consistent character was wanting. 5 
From the history of his life we know this to be 
the fact. The connection between want of the 
religious principle and want of poetical feeling is 
seen in the instances of Hume and Gibbon, who 
had radically unpoetical minds. Rousseau, itio 
may be supposed, is an exception to our doctrine. 
Lucretius, too, had great poetical genius; but his 
work evinces that his miserable philosophy was 
rather the result of a bewildered judgment than 
a corrupt heart. 15 

According to the above theory. Revealed Reli- 
gion should be especially poetical — and it is so 
in fact. While its disclosures have an originality 
in them to engage the intellect, they have a beauty 
to satisfy the moral nature. It presents us with 20 
those ideal forms of excellence in which a poetical 
mind delights, and with which all grace and har- 
mony are associated. It brings us into a new 
world — a world of overpowering interest, of the 
sublimest views, and the tenderest and purest 25 
feelings. The peculiar grace of mind of the New 
Testament writers is as striking as the actual effect 
produced upon the hearts of those who have im- 
bibed their spirit. At present we are not con- 
cerned with the practical, but the poetical nature 30 
of revealed truth. With Christians, a poetical 



218 MISCELLANEOUS 

view of things is a duty — we are bid to color all 
things with hues of faith, to see a Divine meaning 
in every event, and a superhuman tendency. Even 
our friends around are invested with unearthly 

5 brightness — no longer imperfect men, but beings 
taken into Divine favor, stamped with His seal, 
and in training for future happiness. It may be 
added, that the virtues peculiarly Christian are 
especially poetical — meekness, gentleness, com- 

10 passion, contentment, modesty, not to mention 
the devotional virtues; whereas the ruder and 
more ordinary feelings are the instruments of 
rhetoric more justly than of poetry — anger, in- 
dignation, emulation, martial spirit, and love of 

15 independence. 

The Infinitude of the Divine Attributes 

The attributes of God, though intelligible to us 
on their surface, — for from our own sense of 
mercy and holiness and patience and consistency, 
we have general notions of the All-merciful and 

20 All-holy and All-patient, and of all that is proper 
to His Essence, — yet, for the very reason that 
they are infinite, transcend our comprehension, 
when they are dwelt upon, when they are followed 
out, and can only be received by faith. They are 

25 dimly shadowed out, in this very respect, by the 
great agents which He has created in the material 
world. What is so ordinary and familiar to us 
as the elements, what so simple and level to us 



INFINITUDE OF DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 219 

as their presence and operation? yet how their 
character changes, and how they overmaster us, 
and triumph over us, when they come upon us in 
their fullness ! The invisible air, how gentle is it, 
and intimately ours ! we breathe it momentarily, 5 
nor could we live without it; it fans our cheek, 
and flows around us, and we move through it with- 
out effort, while it obediently recedes at every 
step we take, and obsequiously pursues us as we 
go forward. Yet let it come in its power, andio 
that same silent fluid, which was just now the 
servant of our necessity or caprice, takes us up 
on its wings with the invisible power of an Angel, 
and carries us forth into the regions of space, and 
flings us down headlong upon the earth. Or go is 
to the spring, and draw thence at your pleasure, 
for your cup or your pitcher, in supply of your 
wants; you have a ready servant, a domestic ever 
at hand, in large quantity or in small, to satisfy 
•your thirst, or to purify you from the dust and 20 
mire of the world. But go from home, reach the 
coast ; and you will see that same humble element 
transformed before your eyes. You were equal to 
it in its condescension, but who shall gaze with- 
out astonishment at its vast expanse in the bosom 25 
of the ocean? who shall hear without awe the 
dashing of its mighty billows along the beach? 
who shall without terror feel it heaving under him, 
and swelling and mounting up, and yawning wide, 
till he, its very sport and mockery, is thrown to 30 
and fro, hither and thither, at the mere mercy of 



220 MISCELLANEOUS 

a power which was just now his companion and 
almost his slave ? Or, again, approach the flame : 
it warms you, and it enlightens you; yet approach 
not too near, presume not, or it will change its 
5 nature. That very element which is so beautiful 
to look at, so brilliant in its character, so graceful 
in its figure, so soft and lambent in its motion, 
will be found in its essence to be of a keen, resist- 
less nature; it tortures, it consumes, it reduces to 

10 ashes that of which it was just before the illumina- 
tion and the life. So it is with the attributes 
of God ; our knowledge of them serves us for our 
daily welfare ; they give us light and warmth and 
food and guidance and succor; but go forth with 

15 Moses upon the mount and let the Lord pass by, 
or with Elias stand in the desert amid the wind, 
the earthquake, and the fire, and all is mystery 
and darkness; all is but a whirling of the reason, 
and a dazzling of the imagination, and an over- 

20 whelming of the feelings, reminding us that we 
are but mortal men and He is God, and that the 
outlines which Nature draws for us are not His 
perfect image, nor to be pronounced inconsistent 
with those further lights and depths with which it 

25 is invested by Revelation. 

Say not, my brethren, that these thoughts are 
too austere for this season, when we contemplate 
the self-sacrificing, self-consuming charity where- 
with God our Saviour has visited us. It is for that 

30 very reason that I dwell on them ; the higher He 
is, and the more mysterious, so much the more 



INFINITUDE OF DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 221 

glorious and the more subduing is the history of 
His humihation. I own it, my brethren, I love 
to dwell on Him as the Only-begotten Word ; nor 
is it any forgetfulness of His sacred humanity to 
contemplate His Eternal Person. It is the very 5 
idea, that He is God, which gives a meaning to 
His sufferings; what is to me a man, and nothing 
more, in agony, or scourged, or crucified? there 
are many holy martyrs, and their torments were 
terrible. But here I see One dropping blood, 10 
gashed by the thong, and stretched upon the 
Cross, and He is God. It is no tale of human woe 
which I am reading here; it is the record of the 
passion of the great Creator. The Word and 
Wisdom of the Father, who dwelt in His bosom 15 
in bliss ineffable from all eternity, whose very 
smile has shed radiance and grace over the whole 
creation, whose traces I see in the starry heavens 
and on the green earth, this glorious living God, 
it is He who looks at me so piteously, so tenderly 20 
from the Cross. He seems to say, — I cannot 
move, though I am omnipotent, for sin has bound 
Me here. I had had it in mind to come on earth 
among innocent creatures, more fair and lovely 
than them all, with a face more radiant than the 25 
Seraphim, and a form as royal as that of Arch- 
angels, to be their equal yet their God, to fill 
them with My grace, to receive their worship, to 
enjoy their company, and to prepare them for the 
heaven to which I destined them; but, before 1 30 
carried My purpose into effect, they sinned, and 



222 MISCELLANEOUS 

lost their inheritance; and so I come indeed, but 
come, not in that brightness in which I went forth 
to create the morning stars and to fill the sons of 
God with melody, but in deformity and in shame, 
5 in sighs and tears, with blood upon My cheek, and 
with My limbs laid bare and rent. Gaze on Me, 

My children, if you will, for I am helpless; gaze 
on your Maker, whether in contempt, or in faith 
and love. Here I wait, upon the Cross, the ap- 

10 pointed time, the time of grace and mercy ; here 

1 wait till the end of the world, silent and motion- 
less, for the conversion of the sinful and the con- 
solation of the just; here I remain in weakness 
and shame, though I am so great in heaven, till 

15 the end, patiently expecting My full catalogue of 
souls, who, when time is at length over, shall be 
the reward of My passion and the triumph of My 
grace to all eternity. 

Christ upon the Waters 

The earth is full of the marvels of Divine power ; 

20 " Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night 
showeth knowledge." The tokens of Omnipo- 
tence are all around us, in the world of matter, 
and the world of man; in the dispensation of 
nature, and in the dispensation of grace. To do 

25 impossibilities, I may say, is the prerogative of 
Him who made all things out of nothing, who 
foresees all events before they occur, and controls 
all wills without compelling them. In emblem of 



CUBIST UPON THE WATERS 223 

this His glorious attribute, He came to His dis- 
ciples in the passage I have read to you, walking 
upon the sea, — the emblem or hieroglyphic 
among the ancients of the impossible, to show 
them that what is impossible with man is pos- 5 
sible with God. He who could walk the waters, 
could also ride triumphantly upon what is still 
more fickle, unstable, tumultuous, treacherous — 
the billows of human wills, human purposes, hu- 
man hearts. The bark of Peter was struggling lo 
with the waves, and made no progress; Christ 
came to him walking upon them; He entered the 
boat, and by entering it He sustained it. He did 
not abandon Himself to it, but He brought it 
near to Himself ; He did not merely take refuge 15 
in it, but He made Himself the strength of it, 
and the pledge and cause of a successful passage. 
"Presently," another gospel says, "the ship was 
at the land, whither they were going." 

Such was the power of the Son of God, the 20 
Saviour of man, manifested by visible tokens in 
the material world, when He came upon earth; 
and such, too, it has ever since signally shown 
itself to be, in the history of that mystical ark 
which He then formed to float upon the ocean of 25 
human opinion. He told His chosen servants to 
form an ark for the salvation of souls: He gave 
them directions how to construct it, — the length, 
breadth, and height, its cabins and its windows; 
and the world, as it gazed upon it, forthwith 30 
began to criticise. It pronounced it framed quite 



224 MISCELLANEOUS 

contrary to the scientific rules of shipbuilding; it 
prophesied, as it still prophesies, that such a craft 
was not sea-worthy ; that it was not water-tight ; 
that it would not float ; that it would go to pieces 

5 and founder. And why it does not, who can say, 
except that the Lord is in it ? Who can say why 
so old a framework, put together nineteen hun- 
dred years ago, should have lasted, against all 
human calculation, even to this day; always 

10 going, and never gone; ever failing, yet ever 
managing to explore new seas and foreign coasts 
— except that He, who once said to the rowers, 
"It is I, be not afraid," and to the waters, 
"Peace," is still in His own ark which He has 

15 made, to direct and to prosper her course ? 

Time was, my brethren, when the forefathers of 
our race were a savage tribe, inhabiting a wild 
district beyond the limits of this quarter of the 
earth. Whatever brought them thither, they had 

20 no local attachments there or political settlement; 
they were a restless people, and whether urged 
forward by enemies or by desire of plunder, they 
left their place, and passing through the defiles of 
the mountains on the frontiers of Asia, they in- 

25vaded Europe, setting out on a journey towards 
the farther west. Generation after generation 
passed away; and still this fierce and haughty 
race moved forward. On, on they went; but 
travel availed them not; the change of place 

30 could bring them no truth, or peace, or hope, or 
stability of heart; they could not flee from them- 



CUBIST UPON THE WATERS 225 

selves. They carried with them their supersti- 
tions and their sins, their gods of iron and of clay, 
their savage sacrifices, their lawless witchcrafts, 
their hatred of their kind, and their ignorance 
of their destiny. At length they buried themselves 5 
in the deep forests of Germany, and gave them- 
selves up to indolent repose; but they had not 
found their rest ; they were still heathens, making 
the fair trees, the primeval work of God, and the 
innocent beasts of the chase, the objects and the lo 
instruments of their idolatrous worship. And, 
last of all, they crossed over the strait and made 
themselves masters of this island, and gave their • 
very name to it; so that, whereas it had hitherto 
been called Britain, the southern part, which was 15 
their main seat, obtained the name of England. 
And now they had proceeded forward nearly as 
far as they could go, unless they were prepared 
to look across the great ocean, and anticipate the 
discovery of the world which lies beyond it. 20 

What, then, was to happen to this restless race, 
which had sought for happiness and peace across 
the globe, and had not found it ? Was it to grow 
old in its place, and dwindle away, and consume 
in the fever of its own heart, which admitted 25 
no remedy ? or was it to become great by being 
overcome, and to enjoy the only real life of man, 
and rise to his only true dignity, by being sub- 
jected to a Master's yoke? Did its Maker and 
Lord see any good thing in it, of which, under 30 
His Divine nurture, profit might come to His elect, 



226 MISCELLANEOUS 

and glory to His name ? He looked upon it, and 
He saw nothing there to claim any visitation of 
His grace, or to merit any relaxation of the awful 
penalty which its lawlessness and impiety had 

5 incurred. It was a proud race, which feared 
neither God nor man — a race ambitious, self- 
willed, obstinate, and hard of belief, which would 
dare everything, even the eternal pit, if it was 
challenged to do so. I say, there was nothing 

10 there of a nature to reverse the destiny which 
His righteous decrees have assigned to those who 
sin wilfully and despise Him. But the Almighty 
Lover of souls looked once again ; and He saw in 
that poor, forlorn, and ruined nature, which He 

15 had in the beginning filled with grace and light, 
He saw in it, not what merited His favor, not 
what would adequately respond to His influences, 
not what was a necessary instrument of His pur- 
poses, but what would illustrate and preach abroad 

20 His grace, if He took pity on it. He saw in it, 
a natural nobleness, a simplicity, a frankness of 
character, a love of truth, a zeal for justice, an 
indignation at wrong, an admiration of purity, a 
reverence for law, a keen appreciation of the 

25 beautif ulness and majesty of order, nay, further, 
a tenderness and an affectionateness of heart, 
which He knew would become the glorious instru- 
ments of His high will when illuminated and 
vivified by His supernatural gifts. And so He 

30 who, did it so please Him, could raise up children 
to Abraham out of the very stones of the earth, 



CHRIST UPON THE WATER8 227 

nevertheless determined in this instance in His 
free mercy to unite what was beautiful in nature 
with what was radiant in grace; and, as if those 
poor Anglo-Saxons had been too fair to be heathen, 
therefore did He rescue them from the devil's 5 
service and the devil's doom, and bring them 
into the house of His holiness and the mountain 
of His rest. 

It is an old story and a familiar, and I need not 
go through it. I need not tell you, my Brethren, lo 
how suddenly the word of truth came to our 
ancestors in this island and subdued them to its 
gentle rule; how the grace of God fell on them, 
and, without compulsion, as the historian tells us, 
the multitude became Christian ; how, when all 15 
was tempestuous, and hopeless, and dark, Christ 
like a vision of glory came walking to them on 
the waves of the sea. Then suddenly there was 
a great calm; a change came over the pagan 
people in that quarter of the country where the 20 
gospel was first preached to them; and from 
thence the blessed influence went forth, it was 
poured out over the whole land, till one and all, 
the Anglo-Saxon people, were converted by it. In 
a hundred years the work was done; the idols, 25 
the sacrifices, the mummeries of paganism flitted 
away and were not, and the pure doctrine and 
heavenly worship of the Cross were found in their 
stead. The fair form of Christianity rose up and 
grew and expanded like a beautiful pageant from 30 
north to south; it was majestic, it was solemn, it 



228 MISCELLANEOUS 

was bright, it was beautiful and pleasant, it was 
soothing to the griefs, it was indulgent to the 
hopes of man; it was at once a teaching and a 
worship; it had a dogma, a mystery, a ritual of 
5 its own; it had an hierarchical form. A brother- 
hood of holy pastors, with miter and crosier and 
uplifted hand, walked forth and blessed and ruled 
a joyful people. The crucifix headed the proces- 
sion, and simple monks were there with hearts in 

10 prayer, and sweet chants resounded, and the holy 
Latin tongue was heard, and boys came forth in 
white, swinging censers, and the fragrant cloud 
arose, and mass was sung, and the Saints were 
invoked; and day after day, and in the still night, 

15 and over the woody hills and in the quiet plains, 
as constantly as sun and moon and stars go forth 
in heaven, so regular and solemn was the stately 
march of blessed services on earth, high festival, 
and gorgeous procession, and soothing dirge, and 

20 passing bell, and the familiar evening call to 
prayer; till he who recollected the old pagan 
time, would think it all unreal that he beheld and 
heard, and would conclude he did but see a vision, 
so marvelously was heaven let down upon earth, 

25 so triumphantly were chased away the fiends of 
darkness to their prison below. 



THE SECOND SPRING 229 

The Second Spring 
Cant., c. ii. v. 10-12 

Surge, propera, arnica mea, columba mea, formosa 
mea, et veni. Jam enim hiems transiit, imber abiit et 
recessit. Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra. 

Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful 
one, and come. For the winter is now past, the rain is 
over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land. 

We have familiar experience of the order, the 
constancy, the perpetual renovation of the material 
world which surrounds us. Frail and transitory 
as is every part of it, restless and migratory as 
are its elements, never ceasing as are its changes, 5 
still it abides. It is bound together by a law of 
permanence, it is set up in unity; and, though it 
is ever dying, it is ever coming to life again. Dis- 
solution does but give birth to fresh modes of 
organization, and one death is the parent of a 10 
thousand Uves. Each hour, as it comes, is but 
a testimony, how fleeting, yet how secure, how 
certain, is the great whole. It is like an image 
on the waters, which is ever the same, though 
the waters ever flow. Change upon change — 15 
yet one change cries out to another, like the 
alternate Seraphim, in praise and in glory 
of their Maker. The sun sinks to rise again; 
the day is swallowed up in the gloom of the 
night, to be born out of it, as fresh as if it 20 
had never been quenched. Spring passes into 



230 MISCELLANEOUS 

summer, and through summer and autumn into 
winter, only the more surely, by its own ultimate 
return, to triumph over that grave, towards which 
it resolutely hastened from its first hour. We 

5 mourn over the blossoms of May, because they 
are to wither; but we know, withal, that May is 
one day to have its revenge upon November, by 
the revolution of that solemn circle which never 
stops — which teaches us in our height of hope, 

10 ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, 
never to despair. 

And forcibly as this comes home to every one 
of us, not less forcible is the contrast which exists 
between this material world, so vigorous, so re- 

15 productive, amid all its changes, and the moral 
world, so feeble, so downward, so resourceless, 
amid all its aspirations. That which ought to 
come to naught, endures; that which promises a 
future, disappoints and is no more. The same 

20 sun shines in heaven from first to last, and the 
blue firmament, the everlasting mountains, re- 
flect his rays; but where is there upon earth 
the champion, the hero, the law giver, the body 
politic, the sovereign race, which was great three 

25 hundred years ago, and is great now? Moralists 
and poets, often do they descant upon this innate 
vitality of matter, this innate perishableness of 
mind. Man rises to fall : he tends to dissolution 
from the moment he begins to be; he lives on, 

30 indeed, in his children, he lives on in his name, 
he lives not on in his own person. He is, as re- 



THE SECOND SPRING 231 

gards the manifestations of his nature here below, 
as a bubble that breaks, and as water poured out 
upon the earth. He was young, he is old, he is 
never young again. This is the lament over him, 
poured forth in verse and in prose, by Christians 5 
and by heathen. The greatest work of God's 
hands under the sun, he, in all the manifestations 
of his complex being, is born only to die. 

His bodily frame first begins to feel the power 
of this constraining law, though it is the last to lo 
succumb to it. We look at the gloom of youth 
with interest, yet with pity ; and the more grace- 
ful and sweet it is, with pity so much the more; 
for, whatever be its excellence and its glory, soon 
it begins to be deformed and dishonored by the 15 
very force of its living on. It grows into ex- 
haustion and collapse, till at length it crumbles 
into that dust out of which it was originally 
taken. 

So is it, too, with our moral being, a far higher 20 
and diviner portion of our natural constitution; 
it begins with life, it ends with what is worse 
than the mere loss of life, with a living death. 
How beautiful is the human heart, when it puts 
forth its first leaves, and opens and rejoices in 25 
its spring-tide ! Fair as may be the bocUly form, 
fairer far, in its green foliage and bright blossoms, 
is natural virtue. It blooms in the young, like 
some rich flower, so delicate, so fragrant, and so 
dazzling. Generosity and lightness of heart and 30 
amiableness, the confiding spirit, the gentle tem- 



232 MISCELLANEOUS 

per, the elastic cheerfulness, the open hand, the 
pure affection, the noble aspiration, the heroic 
resolve, the romantic pursuit, the love in which 
self has no part, — are not these beautiful ? and 

5 are they not dressed up and set forth for admira- 
tion in their best shapes, in tales and in poems? 
and ah ! what a prospect of good is there ! who 
could believe that it is to fade ! and yet, as night 
follows upon day, as decrepitude follows upon 

10 health, so surel}^ are failure, and overthrow, and 
annihilation, the issue of this natural virtue, if 
time only be allowed to it to run its course. 
There are those who are cut off in the first open- 
ing of this excellence, and then, if we may trust 

15 their epitaphs, they have lived like angels; but 
wait awhile, let them live on, let the course of 
life proceed, let the bright soul go through the 
fire and water of the world's temptations and 
seductions and corruptions and transformations; 

20 and, alas for the insufficiency of nature ! alas for 
its powerlessness to persevere, its waywardness 
in disappointing its own promise ! Wait till 
youth has become age; and not more different 
is the miniature which we have of him when a 

25 boy, when every feature spoke of hope, put side 
by side of the large portrait painted to his honor, 
when he is old, when his limbs are shrunk, his 
eye dim, his brow furrowed, and his hair gray, 
than differs the moral grace of that boyhood from 

30 the forbidding and repulsive aspect of his soul, 
now that he has lived to the age of man. For 



THE SECOND SPBING 233 

moroseness, and misanthropy, and selfishness, is 
the ordinary winter of that spring. 

Such is man in his own nature, and such, too, 
is he in his works. The noblest efforts of his 
genius, th'e conquests he has made, the doctrines 5 
he has originated, the nations he has civihzed, 
the states he has created, they outhve himself, 
they outlive him by many centuries, but they 
tend to an end, and that end is dissolution. 
Powers of the world, sovereignties, dynasties, 10 
sooner or later come to nought; they have their 
fatal hour. The Roman conqueror shed tears 
over Carthage, for in the destruction of the rival 
city he discerned too truly an augury of the fall 
of Rome; and at length, with the weight and the 15 
responsibilities, the crimes and the glories, of cen- 
turies upon centuries, the Imperial City fell. 

Thus man and all his w^orks are mortal; they 
die, and they have no power of renovation. 

But what is it, my Fathers, my Brothers, what 20 
is it that has happened in England just at this 
time? Something strange is passing over this 
land, by the very surprise, by the very commotion, 
which it excites. Were we not near enough the 
scene of action to be able to say what is going on, 25 
— were we the inhabitants of some sister planet 
possessed of a more perfect mechanism than this 
earth has discovered for surveying the transac- 
tions of another globe, — and did we turn our 
eyes thence towards England just at this season, 30 
we should be arrested by a political phenomenon 



234 MISCELLANEOUS 

as wonderful as any which the astronomer notes 
down from his physical field of view. It would 
be the occurrence of a national commotion, almost 
without parallel, more violent than has happened 

5 here for centuries — at least in the judgments 
and intentions of men, if not in act and deed. 
We should note it down, that soon after St. 
Michael's day, 1850, a storm arose in the moral 
world, so furious as to demand some great ex- 

loplanation, and to rouse in us an intense desire to 
gain it. We should observe it increasing from 
day to day, and spreading from place to place, 
without remission, almost without lull, up to this 
very hour, when perhaps it threatens worse still, 

15 or at least gives no sure prospect of alleviation. 
Every party in the body politic undergoes its 
influence, — from the Queen upon her throne, 
down to the little ones in the infant or day school. 
The ten thousands of the constituency, the sum- 

20 total of Protestant sects, the aggregate of re- 
ligious societies and associations, the great body 
of established clergy in town and country, the bar, 
even the medical profession, nay, even literary 
and scientific circles, every class, every inter- 

25 est, every fireside, gives tokens of this ubiqui- 
tous storm. This would be our report of it, seeing 
it from the distance, and we should speculate 
on the cause. What is it all about ? against what 
is it directed? what wonder has happened upon 

30 earth ? what prodigious, what preternatural event 
is adequate to the burden of so vast an effect? 



THE SECOND SPRING 235 

We should judge rightly in our curiosity about 
a phenomenon like this; it must be a portentous 
event, and it is. It is an innovation, a miracle, 
I may say, in the course of human events. The 
physical world revolves year by year, and begins 5 
again; but the political order of things does not 
renew itself, does not return ; it continues, but it 
proceeds; there is no retrogression. This is so 
well understood by men of the day, that with 
them progress is idolized as another name forio 
good. The past never returns — it is never good ; 
if we are to escape existing ills, it must be by 
going forward. The past is out of date ; the past 
is dead. As well may the dead live to us, as well 
may the dead profit us, as the past return. This, 15 
then, is the cause of this national transport, this 
national cry, which encompasses us. The past has 
returned, the dead lives. Thrones are overturned, 
and are never restored; States live and die, and 
then are matter only for history. Babylon was 20 
great, and Tyre, and Egypt, and Nineveh, and 
shall never be great again. The English Church 
was, and the English Church was not, and the 
English Church is once again. This is the por- 
tent, worthy of a cry. It is the coming in of a 25 
Second Spring; it is a restoration in the moral 
world, such as that which yearly takes place in 
the physical. 

Three centuries ago, and the Catholic Church, 
that great creation of God's power, stood in this 30 
land in pride of place. It had the honors of near 



236 MISCELLANEOUS 

a thousand years upon it; it was enthroned on 
some twenty sees up and down the broad coun- 
try; it was based in the will of a faithful people; 
it energized through ten thousand instruments of 
5 power and influence; and it was ennobled by a 
host of Saints and Martyrs. The churches, one 
by one, recounted and rejoiced in the line of 
glorified intercessors, who were the respective 
objects of their grateful homage. Canterbur}^ 

10 alone numbered perhaps some sixteen, from St. 
Augustine to St. Dunstan and St. Elphege, from 
St. Anselm and St. Thomas down to St. Edmund. 
York had its St. Paulinus, St. John, St. Wilfrid, 
and St. William; London, its St. Erconwald; 

15 Durham, its St. Cuthbert; Winton, its St. 
Swithun. Then there were St. Aidan of Lin- 
disfarne, and St. Hugh of Lincoln, and St. 
Chad of Lichfield, and St. Thomas of Here- 
ford, and St. Oswald and St. Wulstan of 

20 Worcester, and St. Osmund of Salisbury, and 
St. Birinus of Dorchester, and St. Richard of 
Chichester. And then, too, its religious orders, 
its monastic establishments, its universities, 
its wide relations all over Europe, its high pre- 

25rogatives in the temporal state, its wealth, its 
dependencies, its popular honors, — where was 
there in the whole of Christendom a more glo- 
rious hierarchy ? Mixed up with the civil insti- 
tutions, with kings and nobles, with the people, 

30 found in every village and in every town, — it 
seemed destined to stand, so long as England 



THE SECOND SPBING 237 

stood, and to outlast, it might be, England's 
greatness. 

But it was the high decree of heaven, that the 
majesty of that presence should be blotted out. 
It is a long story, my Fathers and Brothers — 5 
you know it well. I need not go through it. The 
vivifying principle of truth, the shadow of St. 
Peter, the grace of the Redeemer, left it. That 
old Church in its day became a corpse (a mar- 
velous, an awful change !) ; and then it did but lo 
corrupt the air which once it refreshed, and cum- 
ber the ground which once it beautified. So all 
seemed to be lost; and there was a struggle for 
a time, and then its priests were cast out or 
martyred. There were sacrileges innumerable. 15 
Its temples were profaned or destroyed ; its reve- 
nues seized by covetous nobles, or squandered 
upon the ministers of a new faith. The presence 
of Catholicism was at length simply removed, — 
its grace disowned, — its power despised, — its 20 
name, except as a matter of history, at length 
almost unknown. It took a long time to do this 
thoroughly; much time, much thought, much 
labor, much expense; but at last it was done. 
Oh, that miserable day, centuries before we were 25 
born ! What a martyrdom to live in it and see 
the fair form of Truth, moral and material, 
hacked piecemeal, and every limb and organ 
carried off, and burned in the fire, or cast into 
the deep ! But at last the work was done. Truth 30 
was disposed of, and shoveled away, and there 



238 MISCELLANEOUS 

was a calm, a silence, a sort of peace — and such 
was about the state of things when we were born 
into this weary world. 

My Fathers and Brothers, you have seen it on 

5 one side, and some of us on another; but one and 
all of us can bear witness to the fact of the utter 
contempt into which Catholicism had fallen by 
the time that we were born. You, alas, know it 
far better than I can know it ; but it may not be 

10 out of place, if by one or two tokens, as by the 
strokes of a pencil, I bear witness to you from 
without, of what you can witness so much more 
truly from within. No longer the Catholic 
Church in the country; nay, no longer, I may 

15 say, a Catholic community; but a few ad- 
herents of the Old Religion, moving silently 
and sorrowfully about, as memorials of what had 
been. The "Roman Catholics," — not a sect, 
not even an interest, as men conceived of it, — 

20 not a body, however small, representative of the 
Great Communion abroad, — but a mere handful 
of individuals, who might be counted, like the 
pebbles and detritus of the great deluge, and 
who, forsooth, merely happened to retain a creed 

25 which, in its day indeed, was the profession of a 
Church. Here a set of poor Irishmen, coming and 
going at harvest time, or a colony of them lodged 
in a miserable quarter of the vast metropolis. 
There, perhaps an elderly person, seen walking 

30 in the streets, grave and solitary, and strange, 
though noble in bearing, and said to be of good 



THE SECOND SPRING 239 

family, and a "Roman Catholic.*' An old- 
fashioned house of gloomy appearance, closed in 
with high walls, with an iron gate, and yews, and 
the report attaching to it that " Rom^n Catholics" 
lived there; but who they were, or what they did, 5 
or what was meant by calling them Roman 
Catholics, no one could tell — though it had an 
unpleasant sound, and told of form and supersti- 
tion. And then, perhaps, as we went to and fro, 
looking with a boy's curious eyes through theio 
great city, we might come to-day upon some 
Moravian chapel, or Quaker's meeting-house, and 
to-morrow on a chapel of the " Roman Catholics" ; 
but nothing was to be gathered from it, except 
that there were lights burning there, and some 15 
boys in white, swinging censers; and what it all 
meant could only be learned from books, from 
Protestant Histories and Sermons; and they did 
not report well of the "Roman Catholics," but, 
on the contrary, deposed that they had once had 20 
power and had abused it. And then, again, we 
might on one occasion hear it pointedly put out 
by some literary man, as the result of his careful 
investigation, and as a recondite point of informa- 
tion, which few knew, that there was this differ- 25 
ence between the Roman Catholics of England 
and the Roman Catholics of Ireland, that the 
latter had bishops, and the former were governed 
by four officials, called Vicars-Apostolic. 

Such was about the sort of knowledge possessed 30 
of Christianity by the heathen of old time, who 



240 MISCELLANEOUS 

persecuted its adherents from the face of the 
earth, and then called them a gens lucifuga, a 
people who shunned the light of day. Such were 
Catholics in England, found in corners, and alleys, 

5 and cellars, and the housetops, or in the recesses 
of the country; cut off from the populous world 
around them, and dimly seen, as if through a 
mist or in twilight, as ghosts flitting to and fro, 
by the high Protestants, the lords of the earth. 

10 At length so feeble did they become, so utterly 
contemptible, that contempt gave birth to pity; 
and the more generous of their tyrants actually 
began to wish to bestow on them some favor, 
under the notion that their opinions were simply 

15 too absurd ever to spread again, and that they 
themselves, were they but raised in civil impor- 
tance, would soon unlearn and be ashamed of 
them. And thus, out of mere kindness to us, 
they began to vilify our doctrines to the Protes- 

20 tant world, that so our very idiotcy or our secret 
unbelief might be our plea for mercy. 

A great change, an awful contrast, between the 
time-honored Church of St. Augustine and St. 
Thomas, and the poor remnant of their children 

25 in the beginning of the nineteenth century ! It 
was a miracle, I might say, to have pulled down 
that lordly power; but there was a greater and a 
truer one in store. No one could have prophesied 
its fall, but still less would any one have ventured 

30 to prophesy its rise again. The fall was wonder- 
ful; still after all it was in the order of nature; 



THE SECOND SPRING 241 

all things come to naught : its rise again would 
be a different sort of wonder, for it is in the order 
of grace, — and who can hope for miracles, and 
such a miracle as this? Has the whole course of 
history a like to show? I must speak cautiously 5 
and according to my knowledge, but I recollect 
no parallel to it. Augustine, indeed, came to 
the same island to which the early missionaries 
had come already; but they came to Britons, and 
he to Saxons. The Arian Goths and Lombards, lo 
too, cast off their heresy in St. Augustine's age, 
and joined the Church; but they had never fallen 
away from her. The inspired word seems to imply 
the almost impossibility of such a grace as the 
renovation of those who have crucified to them- 15 
selves again, and trodden under foot, the Son of 
God. Who then could have dared to hope that, 
out of so sacrilegious a nation as this is, a people 
would have been formed again unto their Saviour ? 
What signs did it show that it was to be singled 20 
out from among the nations? Had it been 
prophesied some fifty years ago, would not the 
very notion have seemed preposterous and wild? 
My Fathers, there was one of your own order, 
then in the maturity of his powers and his reputa- 25 
tion. His name is the property of this diocese; 
yet is too great, too venerable, too dear to all 
Catholics, to be confined to any part of England, 
when it is rather a household word in the mouths 
of all of us. What w^ould have been the feelings ;iO 
of that venerable man, the champion of God's ark 



242 MISCELLANEOUS 

in an evil time, could he have lived to see this 
day? It is almost presumptuous for one who 
knew him not, to draw pictures about him, and 
his thoughts, and his friends, some of whom are 

5 even here present; yet am I wrong in fancying 
that a day such as this, in w^iich we stand, would 
have seemed to him a dream, or, if he prophesied 
of it, to his hearers nothing but a mockery? Say 
that one time, rapt in spirit, he had reached for- 

10 ward to the future, and that his mortal eye had 
wandered from that lowly ' chapel in the valley 
which had been for centuries in the possession of 
Catholics, to the neighboring height, then waste 
and solitary. And let him say to those about 

15 him : " I see a bleak mount, looking upon an open 
country, over against that huge town, to whose 
inhabitants Catholicism is of so little account. 
I see the ground marked out, and an ample in- 
closure made; and plantations are rising there, 

20 clothing and circling in the space. 

"And there on that high spot, far from the 
haunts of men, yet in the very center of the island, 
a large edifice, or rather pile of edifices, appears 
with many fronts, and courts, and long cloisters 

25 and corridors, and story upon story. And there 
it rises, under the invocation of the same sweet 
and powerful name which has been our strength 
and consolation in the Valley. I look more at- 
tentively at that building, and I see it is fashioned 

30 upon that ancient style of art which brings back 
the past, which had seemed to be perishing from 



THE SECOND SPBING 243 

off the face of the earth, or to be preserved only 
as a curiosity, or to be imitated only as a fancy. 
I listen, and I hear the sound of voices, grave 
and musical, renewing the old chant, with which 
Augustine greeted Ethelbert in the free air upon 5 
the Kentish strand. It comes from a long pro- 
cession, and it winds along the cloisters. Priests 
and Religious, theologians from the schools, and 
canons from the Cathedral, walk in due precedence. 
And then there comes a vision of well-nigh 10 
twelve mitered heads; and last I see a Prince of 
the Church, in the royal dye of empire and of 
martyrdom, a pledge to us from Rome of Rome's 
unwearied love, a token that that goodly com- 
pany is firm in Apostolic faith and hope. And 15 
the shadow of the Saints is there; St. Benedict 
is there, speaking to us by the voice of bishop 
and of priest, and counting over the long ages 
through which he has prayed, and studied, and 
labored; there, too, is St. Dominic's white wool, 20 
which no blemish can impair, no stain can dim: 
and if St. Bernard be not there, it is only that 
his absence may make him be remembered more. 
And the princely patriarch, St. Ignatius, too, the 
St. George of the modern world, with his chivalrous 25 
lance run through his writhing foe, he, too, sheds 
his blessing upon that train. And others, also, 
his equals or his juniors in history, whose pictures 
are above our altars, or soon shall be, the surest 
proof that the Lord's arm has not waxen short, 30 
nor His mercy failed, — they, too, are looking 



244 MISCELLANEOUS 

down from their thrones on high upon the throng. 
And so that high company moves on into the holy 
place; and there, with august rite and awful 
sacrifice, inaugurates the great act which brings 

5 it thither." What is that act? it is the first 
synod of a new Hierarchy; it is the resurrection 
of the Church. 

my Fathers, my Brothers, had that revered 
Bishop so spoken then, who that had heard him 

10 but would have said that he spoke what could 
not be ? What ! those few scattered worshipers, 
the Roman Catholics, to form a Church ! Shall 
the past be rolled back? Shall the grave open? 
Shall the Saxons live again to God? Shall the 

15 shepherds, watching their poor flocks by night, 
be visited by a multitude of the heavenly army, 
and hear how their Lord has been new-born in 
their own city? Yes; for grace can, where 
nature cannot. The world grows old, but the 

20 Church is ever young. She can, in any time, at 
her Lord's will, " inherit the Gentiles, and inhabit 
the desolate cities." "Arise, Jerusalem, for thy 
light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen 
upon thee. Behold, darkness shall cover the 

25 earth, and a mist the people; but the Lord shall 
arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon 
thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; 
all these are gathered together, they come to 
thee; thy sons shall come from afar, and thy 

30 daughters shall rise up at thy side." "Arise, 
make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, 



THE SECOND SPBING 245 

and come. For the winter is now past, and the 
rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared 
in our land . . . the fig tree hath put forth her 
green figs; the vines in flower yield their sweet 
smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and 5 
come." It is the time for thy Visitation. Arise, 
Mary, and go forth in thy strength into that north 
country, which once was thine own, and take 
possession of a land which knows thee not. Arise, 
Mother of God, and with thy thrilling voice speak lo 
to those who labor with child, and are in pain, 
till the babe of grace leaps within them ! Shine 
on us, dear Lady, with thy bright countenance, 
like the sun in his strength, stella matutina, O 
harbinger of peace, till our year is one perpetual is 
May. From thy sweet eyes, from thy pure smile, 
from thy majestic brow, let ten thousand in- 
fluences rain down, not to confound or over- 
whelm, but to persuade, to win over thine enemies. 
O Mary, my hope, O Mother undefiled, fulfill to 20 
us the promise of this Spring. A second temple 
rises on the ruins of the old. Canterbury has 
gone its way, and York is gone, and Durham is 
gone, and Winchester is gone. It was sore to 
part with them. We clung to the vision of past 25 
greatness, and would not believe it could come 
to naught ; but the Church in England has died, 
and the Church lives again. Westminster and 
Nottingham, Beverley and Hexham, Northamp- 
ton and Shrewsbury, if the world lasts, shall be30 
names as musical to the ear, as stirring to the 



246 MISCELLANEOUS 

heart, as the glories we have lost; and Saints 
shall rise out of them, if God so will, and Doc- 
tors once again shall give the law to Israel, 
and Preachers call to penance and to justice, as 

5 at the beginning. 

Yes, my Fathers and Brothers, and if it be 
God's blessed will, not Saints alone, not Doctors 
only, not Preachers only, shall be ours — but 
Martyrs, too, shall re-consecrate the soil to God. 

10 We know not what is before us, ere we win our 
own; we are engaged in a great, a joyful work, 
but in proportion to God's grace is the fury of 
His enemies. They have welcomed us as the 
lion greets his prey. Perhaps they may be 

15 familiarized in time with our appearance, but 
perhaps they may be irritated the more. To set 
up the Church again in England is too great an 
act to be done in a corner. We have had reason 
to expect that such a boon would not be given 

20 to us without a cross. It is not God's way that 
great blessings should descend without the sacri- 
fice first of great sufferings. If the truth is to be 
spread to any wide extent among this people, how 
can we dream, how can we hope, that trial and 

25 trouble shah not accompany its going forth ? And 
we have already, if it may be said without pre- 
sumption, to commence our work withal, a large 
store of merits. We have no slight outfit for our 
opening warfare. Can we religiously suppose that 

30 the blood of our martyrs, three centuries ago and 
since, shall never receive its recompense ? Those 



THE SECOND SPRING 247 

priests, secular and regular, did they suffer for 
no end? or rather, for an end which is not yet 
accomplished ? The long imprisonment, the fetid 
dungeon, the weary suspense, the tyrannous trial, 
the barbarous sentence, the savage execution, the 5 
rack, the gibbet, the knife, the caldron, the num- 
berless tortures of those holy victims, my God, 
are they to have no reward? Are Thy martyrs 
to cry from under Thine altar for their loving 
vengeance on this guilty people, and to cry in lo 
vain? Shall they lose life, and not gain a bet- 
ter life for the children of those who persecuted 
them? Is this Thy way, O my God, righteous 
and true? Is it accorchng to Thy promise, O 
King of Saints, if I may dare talk to Thee of is 
justice? Did not Thou Thyself pray for Thine 
enemies upon the cross, and convert them? Did 
not Thy first Martyr win Thy great Apostle, then 
a persecutor, by his loving prayer? And in that 
day of trial and desolation for England, when 20 
hearts were pierced through and through with 
Mary's woe, at the crucifixion of Thy body 
mystical, was not every tear that flowed, and 
every drop of blood that was shed, the seeds of a 
future harvest, when they who sowed in sorrow 25 
were to reap in joy? 

And as that suffering of the Martyrs is not yet 
recompensed, so, perchance, it is not yet ex- 
hausted. Something, for what we know, remains 
to be undergone, to complete the necessary sacri- 30 
fice. May God forbid it, for this poor nation's 



248 MISCELLANEOUS 

sake ! But still could we be surprised, my Fathers 
and my Brothers, if the winter even now should 
not yet be quite over? Have we any right to 
take it strange, if, in this English land, the spring- 
5 time of the Church should turn out to be an Eng- 
lish spring, an uncertain, anxious time of hope 
and fear, of joy and suffering, — of bright promise 
and budding hopes, yet withal, of keen blasts, and 
cold showers, and sudden storms ? 

10 One thing alone I know, — that according to 
our need, so will be our strength. One thing I 
am sure of, that the more the enemy rages against 
us, so much the more will the Saints in Heaven 
plead for us ; the more fearful are our trials from 

15 the world, the more present to us will be our 
Mother Mary, and our good Patrons and Angel 
Guardians; the more malicious are the devices of 
men against us, the louder cry of supplication will 
ascend from the bosom of the whole Church to 

20 God for us. We shall not be left orphans; we 
shall have within us the strength of the Paraclete, 
promised to the Church and to every member of 
it. My Fathers, my Brothers in the priesthood, 
I speak from my heart when I declare my con- 

25viction, that there is no one among you here 
present but, if God so willed, would readily be- 
come a martyr for His sake. I do not say you 
would wish it ; I do not say that the natural will 
would not pray that that chalice might pass 

30 away ; I do not speak of what you can do by any 
strength of yours; but in the strength of God, 



THE SECOND SPRING 249 

in the grace of the Spirit, in the armor of justice, 
by the consolations and peace of the Church, by 
the blessing of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and 
in the name of Christ, you would do what nature 
cannot do. By the intercession of the Saints on 5 
high, by the penances and good works and the 
prayers of the people of God on earth, you would 
be forcibly borne up as upon the waves of the 
mighty deep, and carried on out of yourselves by 
the fullness of grace, whether nature wished it or 10 
no. I do not mean violently, or with unseemly 
struggle, but calmly, gracefully, sweetly, joyously, 
3^ou would mount up and ride forth to the battle, 
as on the rush of Angels' wings, as your fathers 
did before you, and gained the prize. You, who 15 
day by day offer up the Immaculate Lamb of 
God, you who hold in your hands the Incarnate 
Word under the visible tokens which He has 
ordained, you who again and again drain the 
chalice of the Great Victim; who is to make you 20 
fear? what is to startle you? what to seduce 
you? who is to stop you, whether you are to 
suffer or to do, whether to lay the foundations of 
the Church in tears, or to put the crown upon the 
work in jubilation ? 25 

My Fathers, my Brothers, one word more. It 
may seem as if I were going out of my way in 
thus addressing you; but I have some sort of 
plea to urge in extenuation. When the English 
College at Rome was set up by the solicitude of a 30 
great Pontiff in the beginning of England's sor- 



250 MISCELLANEOUS 

rows, and missionaries were trained there for con- 
fessorship and martyrdom here, who was it that 
saluted the fair Saxon youths as they passed by 
him in the streets of the great city, with the salu- 

5tation, "Salvete flores martyrum"? And when 
the time came for each in turn to leave that peace- 
ful home, and to go forth to the conflict, to whom 
did they betake themselves before leaving Rome, 
to receive a blessing which might nerve them for 

10 their work? They went for a Saint's blessing; 
they went to a calm old man, who had never 
seen blood, except in penance; who had longed 
indeed to die for Christ, what time the great St. 
Francis opened the way to the far East, but who 

15 had been fixed as if a sentinel in the holy city, 
and walked up and down for fifty years on one 
beat, while his brethren were in the battle. Oh ! 
the fire of that heart, too great for its frail tene- 
ment, which tormented him to be kept at home 

20 when the whole Church was at war! and there- 
fore came those bright-haired strangers to him, 
ere they set out for the scene of their passion, 
that the full zeal and love pent up in that burning 
breast might find a vent, and flow over, from him 

25 who was kept at home, upon those who were to 
face the foe. Therefore one by one, each in his 
turn, those youthful soldiers came to the old man ; 
and one by one they persevered and gained the 
crown and the palm, — all but one, who had not 

30 gone, and would not go, for the salutary blessing. 
My Fathers, my Brothers, that old man was 



ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT 251 

my own St. Philip. Bear with me for his sake. 
If I have spoken too seriously, his sweet smile 
shall temper it. As he was with you three cen- 
turies ago in Rome, when our Temple fell, so 
now surely when it is rising, it is a pleasant token 5 
that he should have even set out on his travels to 
you; and that, as if remembering how he inter- 
ceded for you at home, and recognizing the rela- 
tions he then formed with you, he should now be 
wishing to have a name among you, and to be 10 
loved by you, and perchance to do you a service, 
here in your own land. 

St. Paul's Characteristic Gift 
Ep. II. S. Paul ad Cor., c. xii. v. 9 

Libenter igitur gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis, ut 
inhabitet in me virtus Christi. 

Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that 
the power of Christ may dwell in me. 

All the Saints, from the beginning of history 
to the end, resemble each other in this, that their 
excellence is supernatural, their deeds heroic, their 15 
merits extraordinary and prevailing. They all 
are choice patterns of the theological virtues; 
they all are blessed with a rare and special union 
with their Maker and Lord ; they all lead lives of 
penance; and when they leave this world, they 20 
are spared that torment, which the multitude of 
holy souls are allotted, between earth and heaven, 



252 MISCELLANEOUS 

death and eternal glory. But, with all these va- 
rious tokens of their belonging to one and the 
same celestial family, they may still be divided, 
in their external aspect, into two classes. 
5 There are those, on the one hand, who are so 
absorbed in the Divine life, that they seem, even 
while they are in the flesh, to have no part in 
earth or in human nature; but to think, speak, 
and act under views, affections, and motives 

10 simply supernatural. If they love others, it is 
simply because they love God, and because man 
is the object either of His compassion, or of His 
praise. If they rejoice, it is in what is unseen; if 
they feel interest, it is in what is unearthly; if 

15 they speak, it is almost with the voice of Angels; 
if they eat or drink, it is almost of Angels' food 
alone — for it is recorded in their histories, that 
for weeks they have fed on nothing else but that 
Heavenly Bread which is the proper sustenance 

.20 of the soul. Such w^e may suppose to have been 
St. John; such St. Mary Magdalen; such the 
hermits of the desert; such many of the holy 
Virgins whose lives belong to the science of mys- 
tical theology. 

25 On the other hand, there are those, and of the 
highest order of sanctity too, as far as our eyes 
can see, in whom the supernatural combines with 
nature, instead of superseding it, — invigorating 
it, elevating it, ennobling it; and who are not 

30 the less men, because they are saints. They do 
not put away their natural endowments, but use 



ST. PAUL'S CHABACTEBISTIC GIFT 253 

them to the glory of the Giver; they do not act 
beside them, but through them; they do not 
edipse them by the brightness of Divine grace, 
but only transfigure them. They are versed in 
human knowledge; they are busy in human 5 
society ; they understand the human heart ; they 
can throw themselves into the minds of other 
men; and all this in consequence of natural gifts 
and secular education. While they themselves 
stand secure in the blessedness of purity andio 
peace, they can follow in imagination the ten 
thousand aberrations of pride, passion, and re- 
morse. The world is to them a book, to which 
they are drawn for its own sake, which they read 
fluently, which interests them naturally, — 15 
though, by the reason of the grace which dwells 
within them, they study it and hold converse 
with it for the glory of God and the salvation 
of souls. Thus they have the thoughts, feelings, 
frames of mind, attractions, sympathies, antipa-20 
thies of other men, so far as these are not 
sinful, only they have these properties of human 
nature purified, sanctified, and exalted; and they 
are only made more eloquent, more poetical, more 
profound, more intellectual, by reason of their 25 
being more holy. In this latter class I may per- 
haps without presumption place many of the early 
Fathers, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, 
St. Athanasius, and above all, the great Saint of 
this day, St. Paul the Apostle. 30 

I think it a happy circumstance that, in this 



254 MISCELLANEOUS 

Church, placed, as it is, under the patronage of 
the great names of St. Peter and St. Paul, the 
special feast days of these two Apostles (for such 
we may account the 29th of June as regards St. 

5 Peter, and to-day as regards St. Paul) should, in 
the first year of our assembling here, each have 
fallen on a Sunday. And now that we have 
arrived, through God's protecting Providence, at 
the latter of these two days, the Conversion of 

10 St. Paul, I do not like to forego the opportunity, 
with whatever misgivings as to my ability, of 
offering to you, my brethren, at least a few re- 
marks upon the wonderful work of God's creative 
grace mercifully presented to our inspection in 

15 the person of this great Apostle. Most unworthy 
of him, I know, is the best that I can say ; and even 
that best I cannot duly exhibit in the space of 
time allowed me on an occasion such as this; 
but what is said out of devotion to him, and for 

20 the Divine glory, will, I trust, have its use, defec- 
tive though it be, and be a plea for his favorable 
notice of those who say it, and be graciously 
accepted by his and our Lord and Master. 

Now, since I have begun by contrasting St. 

25 Paul with St. John, and by implying that St. 
John lived a life more simply supernatural than 
St. Paul, I may seem to you, my brethren, to be 
speaking to St. Paul's disparagement; and you 
may therefore ask me whether it is possible for 

30 any Saint on earth to have a more intimate com- 
munion with the Divine Majesty than was granted 



ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT 255 

to St. Paul. You may remind me of his own 
words, "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in 
me ; and, that I now live in the flesh, I live in the 
faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and de- 
livered Himself for me." And you may refer to 5 
his most astonishing ecstasies and visions; as 
when he was rapt even to the third heaven, and 
heard sacred words, which it "is not granted to 
man to utter." You may say, he "no way came 
short" of St. John in his awful initiation into the 10 
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Certainly 
you may say so; nor am I imagining anything 
contrary to you. We indeed cannot compare 
Saints; but I agree with you, that St. Paul was 
visited by favors, equal, in our apprehensions, to 15 
those which were granted to St. John. But then, 
on the other hand, neither was St. John behind 
St. Paul in these tokens of Divine love. In truth, 
these tokens are some of those very things which, 
in a greater or less degree, belong to all Saints 20 
whatever, as I said when I began; whereas my 
question just now is, not what are those points in 
which St. Paul agrees with all other Saints, but 
what is his distinguished mark, how we recognize 
him from others, what there is special in him; 25 
and I think his characteristic is this, — that, as I 
have said, in him the fullness of Divine gifts does 
not tend to destroy what is human in him, but to 
spiritualize and perfect it. According to his own 
words, used on another subject, but laying down, 30 
as it w^ere, the principle on which his ow^n char- 



256 MISCELLANEOUS 

. acter was formed, — " We would not be un- 
clothed/' he says, but " clothed upon, that what 
is mortal may be swallowed up by life." In him, 
his human nature, his human affections, his hu- 

5 man gifts, were possessed and glorified by a new 
and heavenly life; they remained; he speaks of 
them in the text, and in his humility he calls 
them his infirmity. He was not stripped of 
nature, but clothed with grace and the power of 

10 Christ, and therefore he glories in his infirmity. 
This is the subject on which I wish to enlarge. 

A heathen poet has said. Homo sum, humani 
nihil a me alienum puto. " I am a man; nothing 
human is without interest to me:" and the sen- 

15 timent has been widely and deservedly praised. 
Now this, in a fullness of meaning which a heathen 
could not understand, is, I conceive, the charac- 
teristic of this great Apostle. He is ever speak- 
ing, to use his own words, "human things," and 

20 "as a man," and "according to man," and 
"foolishly"; that is, human nature, the com- 
mon nature of the whole race of Adam, spoke in 
him, acted in him, with an energetical presence, 
with a sort of bodily fullness, always under the 

25 sovereign command of Divine grace, but losing 
none of its real freedom and power because of 
its subordination. And the consequence is, that, 
having the nature of man so strong within him, 
he is able to enter into human nature, and to 

30 sympathize with it, with a gift peculiarly his own. 
Now the most startling instance of this is this, 



ST. PAUL'S CHABACTEBISTIC GIFT 257 

— that, though his Ufe prior to his conversion 
seems to have been so conscientious and so pure, 
nevertheless he does not hesitate to associate 
himself with the outcast heathen, and to speak 
as if he were one of them. St. Philip Neri, before 5 
he communicated, used to say, " Lord, I protest 
before Thee that I am good for nothing but to 
do evil.'' At confession he used to say, "I have 
never done one good action." He often said, "I 
am past hope.'' To a penitent he said, "Be sure 10 
of this, I am a man like my neighbors, and noth- 
ing more." Well, I mean, that somewhat in this 
way, St. Paul felt all his neighbors, all the whole 
race of Adam, to be existing in himself. He 
knew himself to be possessed of a nature, he was 15 
conscious of possessing a nature, which was 
capable of running into all the multiplicity of 
emotions, of devices, of purposes, and of sins, 
into which it had actually run in the wide world 
and in the multitude of men; and in that sense 20 
he bore the sins of all men, and associated him- 
self with them, and spoke of them and himself 
as one. He, I say, a strict Pharisee (as he de- 
scribes himself), blameless according to legal 
justice, oonversing with all good conscience be- 25 
fore God, serving God from his forefathers with a 
pure conscience, he nevertheless elsewhere speaks 
of himself as a profligate heathen outcast before 
the grace of God called him. He not only counts 
himself, as his birth made him, in the number of 30 
"children of wrath," but he classes himself with 



258 MISCELLANEOUS 

the heathen as "conversing in the desires of the 
flesh," " and fulfilUng the will of the flesh." And 
in another Epistle, he speaks of himself, at the 
time he writes, as if "carnal, sold under sin"; 

5 he speaks of "sin dwelling in him," and of his 
"serving with the flesh the law of sin"; this, I 
say, when he was an Apostle confirmed in grace. 
And in like manner he speaks of concupiscence as 
if it were sin ; all because he vividly apprehended, 

10 in that nature of his which grace had sanctified, 
what it was in its tendencies and results when 
deprived of grace. 

And thus I account for St. Paul's liking for 
heathen writers, or what we now call the classics, 

15 which is very remarkable. He, the Apostle of the 
Gentiles, was learned in Greek letters, as Moses, 
the lawgiver of the Jews, his counterpart, was 
learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he 
did not give up that learning when he had 

20 " learned Christ." I do not think I am exaggerat- 
ing in saying so, since he goes out of his way three 
times to quote passages from them; once, speak- 
ing to the heathen Athenians; another time, to 
his converts at Corinth; and a third time, in a 

25 private Apostolic exhortation to his disciple St. 
Titus. And it is the more remarkable, that one 
of the writers whom he quotes seems to be a 
writer of comedies, which had no claim to be read 
for any high morality which they contain. Now 

30 how shall we account for this? Did St. Paul de- 
light in what was licentious? God forbid; but 



ST. PAUL'S CHABACTEBISTIC GIFT 259 

he had the feeUng of a guardian-angel who sees 
every sin of the rebeUious being committed to 
him, who gazes at him and weeps. With this 
difference, that he had a sympathy with sinners, 
which an Angel (be it reverently said) cannot 5 
have. He was a true lover of souls. He loved 
poor human nature with a passionate love, and 
the literature of the Greeks was only its expres- 
sion ; and he hung over it tenderly and mourn- 
fully, wishing for its regeneration and salvation, lo 

This is how I account for his familiar knowl- 
edge of the heathen poets. Some of the ancient 
Fathers consider that the Greeks were under a 
special dispensation of Providence, preparatory 
to the Gospel, though not directly from heaven 15 
as the Jewish was. Now St. Paul seems, if I may 
say it, to partake of this feeling; distinctly as he 
teaches that the heathen are in darkness, and in 
sin, and under the power of the Evil One, he will 
not allow that they are beyond the eye of Divine 20 
Mercy. On the contrary, he speaks of God as 
"determining their times and the limits of their 
habitation," that is, going along with the revolu- 
tions of history and the migrations of races, "in 
order that they should seek Him, if haply they 25 
may feel after Him and find Him," since, he con- 
tinues, " He is not far from every one of us.'' 
Again, when the Lycaonians would have wor- 
shiped him, he at once places himself on their 
level and reckons himself among them, and at 30 
the same time speaks of God's love of them, 



260 MISCELLANEOUS 

heathens though they were. "Ye men/' he cries, 
"why do ye these things? We also are mortals, 
men like unto you;" and he adds that God in 
times past, though suffering all nations to walk 

5 in their own ways, " nevertheless left not Himself 
without testimony, doing good from heaven, 
giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts 
with food and gladness." You see, he says, " our 
hearts," not "your," as if he were one of those 

10 Gentiles; and he dwells in a kindly human way 
over the food, and the gladness which food causes, 
which the poor heathen were granted. Hence it 
is that he is the Apostle who especially insists on 
our all coming from one father, Adam; for he 

15 had pleasure in thinking that all men were 
brethren. " God hath made," he says, " all man- 
kind of one"; "as in Adam all die, so in Christ 
all shall be made alive," I will cite but one 
more passage from the great Apostle on the same 

20 subject, one in which he tenderly contemplates 
the captivity, and the anguish, and the longing, 
and the deliverance of poor human nature. " The 
expectation of the creature," he says, that is, of 
human nature, "waiteth for the manifestation 

25 of the sons of God. For the creature was made 
subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of 
Him that made it subject, in hope; because it 
shall be delivered from the servitude of corrup- 
tion into the liberty of the glory of the children 

30 of God. For we know that every creature 
groaneth and travaileth in pain until now." 



ST. PAUL'S CHARACTEEISTIC GIFT 261 

These are specimens of the tender affection 
which the great heart of the Apostle had for all 
his kind, the sons of Adam : but if he felt so much 
for all races spread over the earth, what did he 
feel for his own nation ! what a special mix- 5 
ture, bitter and sweet, of generous pride (if I may 
so speak), but of piercing, overwhelming anguish, 
did the thought of the race of Israel inflict upon 
him ! the highest of nations and the lowest, his 
own dear people, whose glories were before his 10 
imagination and in his affection from his child- 
hood, who had the birthright and the promise, 
yet who, instead of making use of them, had 
madly thrown them away ! Alas, alas, and he 
himself had once been a partner in their madness, 15 
and was only saved from his infatuation by the 
miraculous power of God ! O dearest ones, O 
glorious race, O miserably fallen ! so great and so 
abject ! This is his tone in speaking of the Jews, 
at once a Jeremias and a David; David in his 20 
patriotic care for them, and Jeremias in his plain- 
tive and resigned denunciations. 

Consider his words: "I speak the truth in 
Christ," he says; "I lie not, my conscience bear- 
ing me witness in the Holy Ghost; that I have 25 
great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart.'' 
In spite of visions and ecstasies, in spite of his 
wonderful election, in spite of his manifold gifts, 
in spite of the cares of his Apostolate and "the 
solicitude for all the churches" — you would 30 
think he had had enough otherwise both to grieve 



262 MISCELLANEOUS 

him and to gladden him — but no, this special con- 
templation remains ever before his mind and in 
his heart. I mean, the state of his own poor 
people, who were in mad enmity against the' 

5 promised Saviour, who had for centuries after 
centuries looked forward for the Hope of Israel, 
prepared the way for it, heralded it, suffered for 
it, cherished and protected it, yet, when it came, 
rejected it, and lost the fruit of their long patience. 

10 " Who are Israelites," he says, mournfully linger- 
ing over their past glories, " who are Israelites, to 
whom belongeth the adoption of children, and 
the glory, and the testament, and the giving of 
wealth, and the service of God, and the promises : 

15 whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ ac- 
cording to the flesh, who is over all things, God 
blessed forever. Amen." 

What a hard thing it was for him to give them 
up! He pleaded for them, while they were per- 

20secuting his Lord and himself. He reminded his 
Lord that he himself had also been that Lord's 
persecutor, and why not try them a little longer? 
"Lord," he said, "they know that I cast into 
prison, and beat in every synagogue, them that 

25 believed in Thee. And, when the blood of 
Stephen, Thy witness, was shed, I stood by and 
consented, and kept the garments of them that 
killed him." You see, his old frame of mind, the 
feelings and notions under which he persecuted 

30 his Lord, were ever distinctly before him, and he 
realized them as if they were still his own. " I 



ST. PAUL'S CHABACTERISTIC GIFT 263 

bear them witness," he says, "that they have a 
zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.'' 
O blind ! blind ! he seems to say ; O that there 
should be so much of good in them, so much zeal, 
so much of religious purpose-, so much of stead- 5 
fastness, such resolve like Josias, Mathathias, or 
Machabjsus, to keep the whole law, and honor 
Moses and the Prophets, but all spoiled, all un- 
done, by one fatal sin ! And what is he prompted 
to do ? Moses, on one occasion, desired to suffer lo 
instead of his rebellious people : " Either forgive 
them this trespass," he said, "or if Thou do not, 
strike me out of the book." And now, when the 
New Law was in course of promulgation, and the 
chosen race was committing the same sin, its 15 
great Apostle desired the same: "I wished my- 
self," he says, speaking of the agony he had 
passed through, "I wished myself to be an 
anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are 
my kinsmen according to the flesh." And then, 20 
when all was in vain, when they remained obdu- 
rate, and the high decree of God took effect, still 
he would not, out of very affection for them, he 
would not allow after all that they were repro- 
bate. He comforted himself with the thought of 25 
how many were the exceptions to so dismal a 
sentence. "Hath God cast away His people?" 
he asks ; " God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, 
of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin." 
"All are not Israelites that are of Israel." And 30 
he dwells upon his confident anticipation of their 



264 MISCELLANEOUS 

recovery in time to come. " They are enemies," 
he says, writing to the Romans, ^' for your sakes;" 
that is, you have gained by their loss ; " but they 
are most dear for the sake of the fathers ; for the 
5 gifts and the caUing of God are without repent- 
ance." "BUndness in part has happened to 
Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should 
come in; and so all Israel should be saved." 
My Brethren, I have now explained to a cer- 

10 tain extent what I meant when I spoke of St. 
Paul's characteristic gift, as being a special ap- 
prehension of human nature as a fact, and an 
intimate familiarity with it as an object of con- 
tinual contemplation and affection. He made it 

15 his own to the very full, instead of annihilating 
it; he sympathized with it, while he mortified it 
by penance, while he sanctified it by the grace 
given him. Though he had never been a heathen, 
though he was no longer a Jew, yet he was a 

20 heathen in capability, as I may say, and a Jew 
in the history of the past. His vivid imagination 
enabled him to throw himself into the state of 
heathenism, with all those tendencies which lay 
dormant in his human nature carried out, and 

25 its infirmities developed into sin. His wakeful 
memory enabled him to recall those past feel- 
ings and ideas of a Jew, which in the case of 
others a miraculous conversion might have oblit- 
erated; and thus, while he was a Saint inferior 

30 to none, he was emphatically still a man, and to 
his own apprehension still a sinner, 



ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT 265 

And this being so, do you not see, my brethren, 
how well fitted he was for the office of an Ecu- 
menical Doctor, and an Apostle, not of the Jews 
only, but of the Gentiles? The Almighty some- 
times works by miracle, but commonly He pre- 5 
pares His instruments by methods of this world; 
and, as He draws souls to Him, " by the cords of 
Adam," so does He select them for His use accord- 
ing to their natural powers. St. John, who lay 
upon His breast, whose book was the sacred heart lO 
of Jesus, and whose special philosophy was the 
"scientia sanctorum," he was not chosen to be 
the Doctor of the Nations. St. Peter, taught in 
the mysteries of the Creed, the Arbiter of doctrine 
and the Ruler of the faithful, he too was passed 15 
over in this work. To him specially was it given 
to preach to the world, who knew the world; he 
subdued the heart, who understood the heart. It 
was his sympathy that was his means of influence ; 
it was his affectionateness which was his title and 20 
instrument of empire. " I became to the Jews a 
Jew," he says, "that I might gain the Jews; to 
them that are under the Law, as if I were under 
the Law, that I might gain them that were under 
the Law. To those that were without the Law, 25 
as if I were without the Law, that I might gain 
them that were without the Law. To the weak 
I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I 
became all things to all men, that I might save 
all." 30 

And now, my brethren, my time is out, before 



266 MISCELLANEOUS 

I have well begun my subject. For how can I 
be said yet to have entered upon the great 
Apostle, when I have not yet touched upon his 
Christian affections, and his bearing towards the 

5 children of God? As yet I have chiefly spoken 
of his sympathy with human nature unassisted 
and unregenerate ; not of that yearning of his 
heart, as it showed itself in action under the 
grace of the Redeemer. But perhaps it is most 

10 suitable on the feast of his Conversion, to stop 
at that point at which the day leaves him; and 
perhaps too it will be permitted to me on a future 
occasion to attempt, if it be not presumption, to 
speak of him again. 

15 Meanwhile, may this glorious Apostle, this 
sweetest of inspired writers, this most touching 
and winning of teachers, may he do me some 
good turn, who have ever felt a special devotion 
towards him ! May this great Saint, this man of 

20 large mind, of various sympathies, of affectionate 
heart, have a kind thought for every one of us 
here according to our respective needs ! He has 
carried his human thoughts and feelings with 
him to his throne above; and, though he sees 

25 the Infinite and Eternal Essence, he still remem- 
bers well that troublous, restless ocean below, of 
hopes and fears, of impulses and aspirations, of 
efforts and failures, which is now what it was 
when he was here. Let us beg him to intercede 

30 for us with the Majesty on high, that we too may 
have some portion of that tenderness, compassion. 



.ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT 267 

mutual affection, love of brotherhood, abhorrence 
of strife and division, in which he excelled. Let 
us beg him especially, as we are bound, to bless 
the most reverend Prelate, under whose juris- 
diction we here live, and whose feast day this is; 
that the great name of Paul may be to him a 
tower of strength and fount of consolation now, 
and in death, and in the day of account. 



NOTES 

SAUL 

Introductory Note. The sketches of Saul and David 
are contained in the third volume of Parochial and Plain 
Sermons. These discourses were delivered at Oxford 
before Newman's conversion to the Catholic Church. 

Saul. The first king of Israel reigned from 1091 to 
1051 B.C. He ruled conjointly with Samuel the prophet 
eighteen years, and alone, twenty-two years. Samuel 
had been judge of Israel twelve years when the discon- 
tented Jew^s demanded a king, and Saul was elected by 
lot. 

13 : 7. Manna. Miraculous food supplied to the Jews, 
wandering in the desert of Sin, after their exodus from 
Egypt. The taste of manna was that of flour mixed with 
honey. 

13 : 10. Moses. Deliverer, lawgiver, ruler, and prophet 
of Israel, 1447 b.c. The author of the Pentateuch is 
probably the greatest figure of the Old Law and the 
most perfect type of Christ. 

14 : 3. Gadara. Noted for the miracle of casting out 
demons, wrought there by our Lord. The inhabitants 
in fear besought Him to leave their coasts. Mark v. 17. 

16 : 24. David. The prophet and king famous as the 
royal psalmist. From his line sprang the Messias. 

17:4. The asses. Saul, searching for his father's 
asses, was met by Samuel and anointed king. 

17 : 14. The Ammonites and Moabites. Warlike heathen 

269 



270 NOTES 

tribes probably descended from Lot. They dwelt near 
the Dead Sea; were very hostile to the Jews. 

17 : 15. The Jordan. Largest river of Palestine, es- 
pecially consecrated by the baptism of Christ in its 
waters; is called the river of judgment. An air line 
from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea is sixty miles, 
but so tortuous is the Jordan, its length is two hundred 
miles. 

18 : 12. Philistines (strangers). Gentiles beyond the 
Western Sea, frequently at war with the Hebrews. 
Samson, Saul, and David were famous for their victories 
over these powerful enemies. 

19:29. God's vicegerent. Representative as king. 
Before Saul the Jewish government was theocratic, i.e. 
directly from God. 

20 : 15. Solomon. Son and successor of David, called 
the wisest of men: built the temple; became exalted 
with pride ; was punished for his sins: died probably 
unrepentant. A striking example of the vanity of 
human success unblessed by God. 

20 : 16. Religious principle. A fundamental truth 
upon which conduct is consistently built. A conviction 
of the intellect and hence distinguished from instinct, 
disposition, feeling, often the spring of men's actions. 

21 : 18. Shekel. A silver coin worth about fifty-seven 
cents. 

22 : 23. Sacrifice offered by Saul. Sacrilegious in Saul, 
as the right was limited to the priesthood of Aaron. 

23 : 11. Ark of God. A figure of the Christian Tab- 
ernacle; divinely ordained for the Mosaic worship; 
contained the covenant of God with His chosen people. 

24 : 13. Religion a utility. Inversion of Christ's com- 
mand, — " Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God 
and His justice and all these things shall be added unto 
you." Matthew vi. 33. 



NOTES 2T1 

25 : 8. Joshua. Successor of Moses and leader of the 
Jews into the Promised Land. 

27 : 8. The uncircumcised. Term apphed to all 
outside the Hebrew people. Circumcision, a figure of 
baptism, was the sign of covenant given by God to 
Abraham and his descendants. 

EARLY YEARS OF DAVID 

28 : 6. The Psalms. One hundred and fifty inspired 
hymns of praise, joy, thanksgiving, and repentance, 
composed chiefly by David. Humanly speaking, they 
form the most exquisite lyric poetry extant, and in their 
strong, majestic beauty are most suitable to the Divine 
Offices of the Church. 

29 : 3. Balaam. An Oriental prophet of Mesopotamia, 
1500 B.C. Sent for by the Moabite king to curse the 
Israelites. 

29 : 11. (a) Judah. (6) Shiloh. (a) The fourth son 
of Jacob and Leah. (6) The Messias. 

30 : 14. Anointing of David. To signify that the 
kingship, like the priesthood, is a sacred office, all power 
coming from God. 

31:6. Sacred songs. The inspired music of David 
was the means of restoring grace to the troubled spirit 
of Saul. Browning's Saul paints strikingly the char- 
acter of the shepherd boy and of the distracted old 
king. 

32 : 1. Goliath of Gath. A type of the giant. Sin; 
also of Lucifer, overcome by the meek Christ, who is 
prefigured by David. 

34 : 6. The Apostle. St. Paul, who recounts to the 
Hebrews his sufferings for Christ. 

36 : 5. Joseph. Son of Jacob; governor of Egypt 
under Pharaoh. 



272 NOTES 

36 : 16. From Moses. A fine distinction between the 
theocratic and the royal government of Israel. 

38 : 24. The king's son-in-law. Saul in envy married 
his daughter Michol to David ''that she might prove a 
stumbling-block to him." 

39 : 4. David and Joseph. Note the consistent and 
forcible parallel. 

43 and 44. The patriarchs. This passage illustrates 
the exquisite choice of words, the perfect finish of sen- 
tence, and the wonderful beauty of thought characteris- 
tic of Newman. 

BASIL AND GREGORY 

Introductory Note. These Essays on the Fathers are 
to be found in Historical Sketches, Vol. III. They were 
written to illustrate the tone and mode of thought, the 
habits and manners of the early times of the Church. 

Athens. Most of those who sought Attic wisdom 
were natures without control. "Basil and Gregory were 
spoiled for subtle, beautiful, luxurious Athens. They 
walked their straight and loving road to God, with the 
simplicity which alone could issue out of the intense 
purpose of their lives — the love and service of Christ 
their Lord." 

45 : 15. Hildebrand. St. Gregory VII, one of the 
greatest among the great Roman pontiffs. He combated 
the evils of the eleventh century, within and without 
the Church, and effected incalculable good, especially 
in the war of Investitures waged against Henry IV of 
Germany. 

45 : 17. City of God. The Church. 

45 : 18. Ambrose. Archbishop of Milan, noted for 
zeal in spreading the faith; remembered for his fearless 
rebuke of the Emperor Theodosius. 



NOTES 273 

46 : 30. Pontus. Part of Cappadocia in Asia Minor; 
founded by Alexander the Great. 

47 : 28. The contention. See Acts of the Apostles 
XV. 39. 

49 : 16. Armenian creed. Similar to that of the Greek 
Church. 

55 : 17. The Thesbite. Elias, who dwelt on Carmel, 
as did St. John the Baptist, in most rigorous penance. 

55:18. Carmel. A mountain on the coast of Palestine, 
noted in sacred history.. 

AUGUSTINE AND THE VANDALS 

56 : 7. Heretical creed. The Arians were followers of 
Arius of Alexandria, who boldly denied the Divinity of 
Jesus Christ. The heresy was condemned by the Coun- 
cil of Nice, 325 a.d., but its baneful effects were widely 
felt for centuries. 

56 : 15. Apocalypse. Wonderful revelations made to 
St. John at Patmos concerning the Church, the final 
judgment, the future life. 

57 : 21. The Vandals. A barbarian race of Southern 
Germany, who in the fifth century ravaged Gaul, Spain, 
Italy, and Northern Africa. 

59 : 13. Montanists. A sect of the second century 
that believed in Montanus as a prophet, and in the near 
advent of Christ to judge the world. 

60 : 31. (a) The prophet. (6) Jeroboam, (a) Ahias. 
(6) The first king of Israel after the separation of the 
tribes; a man perverse and irreverent in his relations 
with God and subject. 

59 to 70. The argument. The apology for flight in 
times of religious persecution, made by Athanasius, the 
great bishop of Alexandria, fourth century, and the 
cogent argument against it of TertuUian, a celebrated 



274 NOTES 

writer of the second century, show how circumstances, 
above all, Divine inspiration, justify opposite lines of 
action. St. Augustine's letter, written in his strong and 
luminous style, reconciles the two points of view. 

71 to 74. The misery of irreligion. A profound analy- 
sis of the two classes of men without religion, — the one 
distorted, brutahzed, and deadened; the other confused, 
wild, and hungering after what is to them indefinable, 
yet alone satisfying. Compare in its source, tenor, and 
effect the unhappiness of the "popular poet" Byron 
and that of Augustine. 

76 : 8. St. Monica. ' One of the greatest women of 
all times ; a model of faith, constancy, and maternal 
love. 

79:23. Christianity a philosophy. Such it is accounted 
by many modern thinkers who, in spite of clear, full 
evidences of its divinity, affect to doubt or deny alto- 
gether the supernatural." These reduce the Gospels to 
a code of ethics, and regard Christ as merely a teacher 
of morality; the earnestness of Augustine would lead 
them by a short road to recognize and worship God in 
Jesus Christ. 

CHRYSOSTOM 

84 to 90. The Introduction. The personal touch of 
these pages gives an insight into the tender, sensitive 
nature of Cardinal Newman. He was a man not only 
of intense and powerful intellect, but of delicate and 
affectionate heart. It is his gracious, winning appeal 
that renders him irresistible in influence. 

90 : 12. Chrysostom. "Golden mouth," from his elo- 
quence. He is counted among the great Patristic writers. 

90 : 21. Antipater. Son of Herod the Great ; called 
by Josephus "a monster of iniquity." He was put to 
death, 1 B.C. 



NOTES 275 

90 : 22. Fulvia. Wife of Marc Antony; noted for her 
cruelty and ambition. 

92 : 6. (a) Gallus. (6) Ovid, (a) Governor of Egypt 
under Augustus; accused of crime and oppression, and 
banished. (6) A celebrated Roman poet, author of 
Metamor phases; exiled by Augustus for some grave 
offense never revealed. 

97 : 12. The seasons. This apt and ingenious anal- 
ogy is regarded as one of Newman's more beautiful 
passages. 

100 : 30. Chrysostom' s discriminating affectionateness. 
The reason, probably, why he has so great a hold upon 
the heart of posterity — love begets love. 

105 : 8. Cucusus. In Caucasus, east of the Black Sea 
and north of Persia. 

108 : 19. Troas. In Northwest Asia Minor. Troad 
contains ancient Troy. 

105 to no. The letters of Chrysostom. The charm of 
his genius, the sweetness of his temper under suffering, 
and the unselfishness of his lofty soul appear in these sim- 
ple lines written on the road or in the desert of his banish- 
ment. 

THE TARTAR AND THE TURK 

Introductory Note. These sketches of Turkish history 
form the substance of lectures delivered in Liverpool, 
1853. Special interest attached to them at the time, 
as England was about to undertake the defense of the 
Turks against Russia in the Crimean War. Selections 
from only three are here possible. 

111 : 7. The Tartars. Fierce, restless tribes originally 
inhabiting Manchuria and Mongolia. 

112 : 31. (a) Attila. (6) Zingis. (a) Leader of the 
Huns, who overran Southern Europe in the fifth century. 
He was defeated by Aetius at Chalons, 451, and miracu- 



276 NOTES 

lously turned from Rome by Pope Leo the Great. (6) 
Zenghis Khan, a powerful Mongol chief whose hordes 
descended upon Eastern Europe in the thirteenth 
century. 

114 : 21, Timour. Known as Tamerlane, founder of a 
Mongol empire in Central Asia; victor over Bajazet at 
Angora, 1402 a.d. 

1 16 : 20. Heraclius. Emperor of Greece in the seventh 
century; noted for his rescue of the true Cross from 
the Persians, with whom he waged long wars. 

116 : 26. That book. The Koran or bible of the Ma- 
hometans. It is a mixture of Judaism, Nestorianism, 
and Mahomet's own so-called "revelations." 

120 : 10. Monotheism . . . mediation. Belief in one 
God, but denial of the Redemption of fallen man by 
Jesus Christ, the God-Man. 

120 : 26. Durbar. A levee held by a dignitary in Brit- 
ish India; also the room of reception. 

THE TURK AND THE SARACEN 

Saracens. Eastern Mahometans that crossed into 
Turkey, Northern Africa, and Spain. The Moors are a 
type. 

122 : 14. Sogdiana. Northeast of the river Oxus; in- 
cluded in modern Bokhara. 

123 : 6. White Huns. Ancient people living near the 
Oxus; called ivhite from their greater degree of civiliza- 
tion. 

125 : 23. Damascus. In Asiatic Turkey; thought to 
be the oldest city in the world. 

126 : 1. Harun al Raschid. Caliph of Bagdad; con- 
temporaneous with Charlemagne in the eighth century. 

127 : 28. Ended its career. The power of the European 
Turks, virtually broken at Lepanto, 1571, has continued 



NOTES 277 

to decline, so that were it not for the jealousy of the 
Powers, Turkey would long since have been dismembered. 

129 : 24. Khorasan. North central province of Persia. 

133 : 25. (a) Seljuk. (6) Othman. (a) Grandfather of 
Togrul Beg, who founded a powerful dynasty in Central 
Asia. (6) Third successor of Mahomet; caliph in 644; 
noted for his extensive conquests and for having given 
his name to the Ottomans. 

135 : 20. Greek Emperor. Romanus Diogenes, de- 
feated in 1071 A.D. 

THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE OTTOMANS 

144 : 17. (a) Thornton. (6) Volney. (a) An English 
writer on political economy, belonging to the nineteenth 
century. (5) A distinguished French author. His 
Travels in Egypt and Syria is a work of high reputation. 

148 : 12. Scythians. In ancient times the inhabitants 
of all North and Northeastern Europe and Asia. 

149 : 31. The Greek schism. Separation of the Greek 
Church from Rome. The schism was begun by the 
crafty, ambitious Photius in the ninth century, and 
consummated by Michael Cerularius in 1054. 

154. Principle of superiority. A forcible proof that 
Christianity must be and is the religion of civilization. 
See Balmes on the Civilization of Europe. 

WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 

Introductory Note. Newman's purpose in these 
Essays is to set forth by description and statement the 
nature, the work, and the peculiarities of a University; 
the aims with which it is established, the wants it may 
supply, the methods it adopts, its relation to other in- 
stitutions, and its general history. 



278 NOTES 

The illustrations of his idea of a University first 
appeared in the Dublin University Gazette; later, in 
one volume, Office and Work of Universities. In the 
present form the author has exchanged the title to His- 
torical Sketches, but has retained the pleasantly con- 
versational tone of the original, lest, as he says, he might 
become more exact and solid at the price of becoming less 
readable, in the judgment of a day which considers that 
"a great book is a great evil." 

159 : 14. A gentleman. Dr. Newman is unconsciously 
painting his own portrait in this passage. 

161 : 17. St. Irenaeus. A Christian martyr of the sec- 
ond century. He was a Greek by birth, a pupil of St. 
Polycarp, and an eminent theologian of his day. 

163 : 19. Its associations. Universities are both the 
cause and the effect of great men; and these cherish their 
Alma with unlimited devotion. Read Gray's Eton, 
Lowell's Commemoration Ode, etc., as illustrations of this 
point. 

UNIVERSITY LIFE : ATHENS 

164 : 14. (a) Saronic waves, (b) Piraeus, (a) The Gulf 
of iEgina. (6) Commercial port of Athens. 

164 : 31. Obolus. A Greek coin worth about three 
cents. Paid by spirits to Charon for ferriage over the 
Styx, according to legend. 

165 : 23. Eleusinian mysteries. Secret rites of the 
goddess Ceres, celebrated at Eleusis. 

166 : 31. Philippi. Battle in which Antony defeated 
the conspirators that had slain Csesar. 

167 : 9. Proaeresius. Student of Athens, a native 
of Armenia, famous for his gigantic stature as well 
as for an astounding memory, displayed in the field of 
rhetoric. 

170 : 11. Gallipoli. In Turkey, at the entrance to the 



NOTES 279 

Dardanelles. It was the first conquest of the Turks 
in Europe, 1354 a.d. 

173 : 3. (a) Acropolis. (b) Areopagus, (a) The cita- 
del of Athens, ornamented by groups of statuary im- 
mortal in beauty. (6) The chief tribunal, held on a 
hill named for Ares or Mars. 

173 : 5. Parthenon. The official temple of Pallas, 
protectress of Athens; it is the work of Phidias, under 
Pericles. 

173 : 7. Polygnotus. A Greek painter, contempora- 
neous with Phidias. His work is in statuesque style, 
few colors, form and outline exquisite. 

173:13. Agora. The commercial and political market 
place, located near the Acropolis. It was designed by 
Cimon. 

173 : 14. Demosthenes. The most famous orator of 
Greece, if not of all times. He learned philosophy 
of Plato, oratory of Isocrates. His Philippics are of 
world-wide note. 

174 : 6. Plato. The Divine, on whose infant lips the 
bees are said to have dropped their honey. He was 
the pupil of Socrates and the master of Aristotle; he 
founded the Academy, or the Platonic School of Phi- 
losophy, and wrote the Republic. Plato was a man 
of vast intellect, high ideals, and exceptionally pure 
life. 

175 : 17. Aristotle. Called the Stagyrite from Stage- 
rius, his birthplace. He was preceptor to Alexander 
the Great and founder of the Peripatetic School, i.e. of 
scholasticism. Aristotle undoubtedly possessed the most 
comprehensive, keen, and logical intellect of antiquity, 
and his influence on the philosophical thought of all 
succeeding ages is incalculable. His work in the field 
of physical science was also profound and extensive. 

176 : 26. The fourth century. The Golden Age of 



280 NOTES 

Athenian art, letters, civil and military prestige; it 
was the age that crowned Athens Queen of Mind. 

177 : 12. Epicurus. Founder of a school of material- 
ism whose maxim was, " Eat, drink, and be merry, for 
to-morrow we die," The Epicurean said, "indulge the 
passions," the Stoic, " crush them," the Peripatetic, — 
like the Christian of later times, — " control them." 
Imperial Athens, no less than other powers, fell when her 
sons ceased to follow the counsel of her wisest philoso- 
phers. — " Play the immortal." 

SUPPLY AND DEMAND: THE SCHOOLMEN 

183 :21. Paris, etc. The great Universities reached 
the zenith of excellence in the thirteenth century, the 
age of Pope Innocent III, St. Thomas, and Dante. 

185 : 10. Bee. Famous monastery founded by a 
poor Norman knight, Herluin. Bee drew the great Lan- 
franc and others to its school. Many are accustomed 
to regard the Renaissance as the fountain whence have 
issued all streams of art, literature, and science. It is 
only necessary to turn to any of the teeming university or 
monastic centers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to 
dispel this so common illusion. 

THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVER- 
SITIES : ABELARD 

186 : 15. Abelard. Born in Brittany, 1079. He was 
a contentious, arrogant, but brilliant and fascinating 
rationalist. He triumphed over William of Champeaux, 
but was defeated in a theological contest by St. 
Bernard. 

187 : 29. Heresy of (a) Tertullian, (h) Sabellius. (a) 
Modified Montanism; belief in rigid asceticism, the 



NOTES 281 

Montanists being, according to their doctrine, ''Pneu- 
matics," the CathoUcs, "Psychics," i.e. men of heaven, 
men of earth, (b) A heresy which attempted to explain 
the Trinity, and which denied the PersonaUty of Jesus 
Christ. 

1 88 : 28. Scholastic philosophy. A constructive sys- 
tem founded by Aristotle, Christianized by Boethius, 
amplified by St. Anselm, Albert the Great, and others, 
perfected as a school, in its being harmonized with 
theology, by St. Thomas of Aquin. Love of subtilizing 
and of display, and barbarity of terminology, caused its 
decline after the thirteenth century. Political and re- 
ligious strife also accelerated decadence, until the Council 
of Trent restored philosophy to its true position as 
queen of human sciences and handmaid of Religion. 
The chief feature of Christian scholastic philosophy 
is the harmonizing of natural and supernatural truth, 
i.e. the unifying of philosophy and theology, or the perfect 
conciliation of reason with faith — distinction without 
opposition. 

192 : 10. The Seven Arts. The Trivium and Quad- 
rivium: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric; Music, Arithmetic, 
Astronomy, and Geometry, — these seven comprising the 
Liberal Arts. 

193 : 19. John of Salisbury. Noted English scholar 
of the twelfth century. In disfavor with Henry II, 
because of his defense of St. Thomas a Becket. 

195 : 17. St. James iii. 17. 

195 : 23. St. James iii. 6. 

196 : 21. Samson and Solomon. Type of bodily and 
of spiritual strength — strength forfeited by folly. One 
of Newman's striking comparisons. 

199 : 18. Heu, vitam. . . . Alas, I have w^asted my 
life by doing nothing thoroughly. 



282 NOTES 

POETRY ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE 

Introductory Note. This instructive Essay on poetry 
forms one of the series titled Critical and Historical 
Essays. Cardinal Newman's own gifts and tastes for 
music and poetry render his appreciation of these arts 
keen, delicate, and true. 

200 to 203. Nature and office of poetry. A profound 
and beautiful definition of poetry and of the poetical 
mind. 

203 : 1. (a) Iliad. (6) Choephorae. (a) Epic of the 
Fall of Troy by Homer. (6) A tragedy by iEschylus, 
so named from the chorus that bear offerings to the 
tomb of Agamemnon. 

203:26. (a) Empedocles. (6) Oppian. (a) A Sicilian; 
haughty, passionate; proclaimed himself a god; plunged 
into the crater of Mt. Etna. (6) A Greek poet of Cilicia; 
lived in the second century. 

208 : 15. The Divine vengeance. Does not the same 
criticism apply to Milton's Satan, a majestic spirit, 
punished beyond his due, and therefore worthy our ad- 
miration and pity? Compare Dante and Milton in their 
conception of Lucifer. 

210 : 17. Eloquence mistaken for poetry. A finely 
distinguished truth, which explains why much rhetoric, 
even declamation, passes in our day for poetry. 

215 : 16. Conditions of the poetical mind. Mark the 
line drawn between the sources of true poetry and the 
actual practices of the poet. Compare with the theory 
of Wordsworth, to find likenesses on this point. 

THE INFINITUDE OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 

Introductory Note. This and other typical addresses 
are comprised in Disco^irscs to Mixed Congregations. 
The unerring taste of Newman employs the grave, dig- 



NOTES 283 

nified style suited to the subject-matter, which, however, 
never loses the simplicity and charm we expect in him. 
218 : 28. The elements. Earth, air, fire, and water 
were believed primal elements by the ancients. 

220 : 27. This season. Lent, which commemorates 
the Sacred Passion of Christ. 

221 : 21. He seems to say: to the end. An illustration 
of Newman's sweet, impassioned eloquence. His sen- 
tences roll on like music of indefinable tenderness and 
beauty. What wonder if men "who came to scoff re- 
mained to pray," when the tones of that voice Matthew 
Arnold could not describe — for its singular sweetness 
— fell upon their listening souls ? 

CHRIST UPON THE WATERS 

Introductory Note. This discourse was written from 
notes of a sermon preached at Birmingham, on occasion 
of the installation of Dr. Ullathorne as first bishop of the 
see. Again it says to us, "I beheve, therefore I have 
spoken." 

222 : 20." "Day to day." See Psalm xviii. 2. 

222 : 25. Impossibilities. Extrinsic impossibilities, that 
is, those things whose elements are not metaphysically 
opposed, one to another. 

223 : 1. He came. See St. Matthew xiv. 24, 27. 

223 : 24. That mystical ark. The Church, called the 
ark because prefigured by the Ark of Noe, — the House of 
Salvation. 

224 : 14. Christ in His ark. " Behold I am with you 
all days, even to the consummation of the world." St. 
Matthew xxviii. 20. 

224 : 17. A savage tribe. The Anglo-Saxons of Teu- 
tonic stock and sprung from the Aryan branch of the 
human family. 



284 NOTES 

226 to 228. It was a proud race . . . hierarchical 
form. A passage of inimitable grace and simplicity. 
Note the sentence-structure, the repetition of "it" in 
the last sentence, and other features of the consummate 
master. 

227 : 4. Too fair to be heathen. On seeing some 
Angles in Rome, Pope Gregory exclaimed, " They 
should rather be called Angels than Angles." 

228 : 5. A brotherhood . . . below. Where in the 
range of English prose is to be found form wedded to 
sense in a more surpassingly beautiful way? Neither 
music, nor painting, nor poetry, can have anything more 
exquisite to yield, it would seem. 

Other numbers of this volume equally admirable are 
The Second Spring, The Tree beside the Waters, and 
Intellect the Instrument of Religious Training. 

THE SECOND SPRING 

Introductory Note. This discourse was given in St. 
Mary's, Oscott, on the restoration of the Catholic hier- 
archy to England. It furnishes an excellent specimen 
of the simplicity and grace of Newman's style. The 
climax is reached in the glory of the last pages. 

229 : 17. Alternate Seraphim. The angelic choirs 
whom St. John in vision heard crying, "Holy, Holy, 
Holy, Lord God Almighty." Apocalypse iv. 8. 

231 : 24. How beautiful. ... A strong presentation 
of the weakness of human nature left to itself. " With- 
out me you can do nothing," says Christ. John xv. 5. 

233 : 12. Roman conqueror. Scipio Africanus, victor 
of the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War. 

235 : 22. The English Church. The Cathohc Church 
in England was virtually destroyed by Henry VIII, re- 
stored by Mary I, and offically re-destroyed by Elizabeth, 



NOTES 285 

who attempted, through Matthew Parker, to create 
new orders. The Second Spring is the resuscitation of 
the Church in England, 1850. 

237:11. Cumber the ground. "Why doth it (the 
barren fig tree) cumber the ground? " Newman' s writ- 
ings, like St. Augustine's, are saturated with Scripture. 

240 : 23. (a) St. Augustine. (6) St. Thomas, (a) 
Called St. Austin, sent by Gregory the Great to convert 
the Anglo-Saxons, 597 a.d. (6) Martyred at Canterbury 
by the nobles of Henry II because of his fearless defense 
of the rights of the Church. The Pilgrims in Chaucer's 
Canterbury Tales are on their way to the shrine of St. 
Thomas a Becket. 

241 : 10. Arian Goths and Lombards. Barbarians 
that successively conquered and occupied Italy; from 
the fifth to the eighth century their power was felt. 
They embraced the heresy of Arius instead of true 
Christianity. 

242 : 29. That building. Cathedral of Westminster, 
built in Gothic style. 

243 : 11. Prince of the Church. Cardinal Archbishop 
Wiseman, clad in purple as bishop; in red, as cardinal. 
In his person the hierarchy was restored to England. 

243 : 16. St. Benedict. Founder of monasticism in 
the West. Europe owes much of its progress in early 
centuries to the zeal and intelligence of the Benedictine 
monks, — builders of churches and schools, makers of 
laws, tillers of lands. 

244:15. The shepherds. They who heard from angels 
the tidings of Christ's birth in Bethlehem. 

244 : 22. Arise, Jerusalem. . . . Quotations from 
Isaias and the Canticle of Canticles. 

245 : 6. Thy visitation. Allusion to Mary's going 
over the hill country to visit her cousin Elisabeth. At 
the presence of Mary, the unborn child of Elisabeth, 



286 NOTES 

John the Baptist, leaped for joy and was sanctified by 
the grace of Christ. 

247 : 1. Regular and secular priests. The first are 
those bound by vows to observe a religious rule, as the 
Dominicans; the second are those under obedience to 
their bishop, and bound only by the vow of celibacy. 

247 : 18. Thy first Martyr. St. Stephen, whose death 
won the conversion of St. Paul. Note the beauty of the 
apostrophe. 

248 : 20. Orphans. " I will not leave you orphans." 
John xiv. 18. 

249 : 15, You . . . victim. Reference to the august 
Sacrifice of the Mass. 

249 : 31. A great Pontiff. Gregory XIII, 1572-1585, 
established colleges for the spread of the Faith; his work 
was continued by Gregory XV in the Propaganda; but 
it was left for Pope Urban VIII to create the great 
missionary colleges for the six nations. 

250 : 13. St. Francis. Xavier, the illustrious Jesuit, 
who converted millions to Christ in India and Japan; 
he died on his way to China, in the latter part of the 
sixteenth century. 

251 : 1. St. Philip. 1515-1595. An Italian saint, 
contemporaneous with St. Ignatius of Loyola, who es- 
tablished the Society of Jesus. St. Philip Neri founded 
the Oratorians, a body devoted to preaching and to 
education. 

The Second Spring. This sermon is very character- 
istic of Newman in its appeal to the whole man lis- 
tening; he not only rivets the intelligence, but stirs 
the will and moves the heart by the intensity, the 
vigor, and the tenderness that breathe in every word. 



NOTES 287 

ST. PAUL'S CHARACTERISTIC GIFT 

Introductory Note. This discourse on St. Paul, de- 
livered in Dublin, 1857, forms one of the Sermons on 
Various Occasions. Paul — that godlike man who 
longed to be anathema from Christ if thereby he could 
serve the brethren — was Newman's saint by predilec- 
tion; and allusions to his character and mission are 
frequent in the Cardinal's writings. 

As these selections for study began with Saul, they 
may well finish with a sketch of the greater Saul — the 
Apostle of the Gentiles. 

251 : 17. Theological virtues. Faith, hope, and char- 
ity; so-called because God is their direct object and 
motive. 

252 : 19. Heavenly Bread. The Holy Eucharist. "I 
am the living bread which came down from heaven." 
St. John vi. 51. "And the bread that I will give is 
my flesh for the life of the world." St. John vi. 52. 

254 : 9. Conversion of St. Paul. Commemorated 
January 25. 

256 : 12. Heathen poet. Terence. There is much phi- 
lanthropy in these latter times, — even to altruism, — 
but less of charity, which loves the neighbor for God's 
sake. 

257 : 5. St. Philip Neri. Lived in the sixteenth 
century. Founder of the Oratorians, a congregation 
devoted to preaching and works of charity. Newman 
introduced the Oratorians into England. 

259 : 28. Lycaonians. People of south central part 
of Asia Minor; evangelized by St. Paul. 

262 : 26. Stephen. The first Christian martyr; stoned 
to death by the Jews, outside the walls of Jerusalem. 

263 : 6. (a) Josias, (6) Mathathias. (c) Machabeus. 
(a) King of Juda, seventh century b.c. A great war- 



288 NOTES 

rior and defender of the Jewish religion, (b) "Gift of 
God." Lived in the second century b.c. and fought 
bravely in defense of Juda, during the bloody persecu- 
tions of Antiochus. He appointed Judas Machabeus, the 
most famous of his five sons, to succeed him in the 
struggle, (c) "The Hammer." Judas gained glorious 
victories over the Idumeans, Ammonites, and other 
heathen tribes, and the Bible immortalizes his character 
as that of one of the greatest of the sons of Juda. " He 
made Jacob glad with his works and his memory is 
blessed forever." 

The books of the Machabees are the history of the 
final struggles of the Jews against their Syrian and Per- 
sian foes, 

265 : 2. Ecumenical Doctor. A teacher of the universal 
Church. 

265 : 31, And now my time is out. This conclusion 
exhibits once more the felicity of diction, the delicate 
rhythm of structure, the simple grace, the direct force — 
above all, the unconsciousness, almost disdain of pro- 
ducing literary effect, that everywhere characterize 
Newman's writings, whatever be the subject. 

267 : 4. Reverend Prelate. Paul Cardinal Cullen, 
primate of Ireland in 1850. 



JAN 18 1907 



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